NeXt Genesis Part I
by dead-raccoons
Summary: Chapter 27 is up! Families are reunited in the wake of the battle with Apocalypse - but are the X-Men celebrating prematurely? Rated "T" for mild language. Please read & review & comment! I definitely love feedback!
1. Ruby Wants a Dog

**Greetings, all! Maria here! The X-Men do not belong to me. Meg and Ruby are canon characters, however, though they come from different zany timelines in the Marvel Universe. Google it. I thought it would be fun to put them in the same timeline. I hope you enjoy. "NeXt Genesis" because cheesy "X" puns are cheesy. "Fergalicious" does not belong to me either. I wish it did ...**

 **Cheers, Maria**

 **Please Read & Review!**

 _ **Chapter I: Ruby Wants A Dog**_

Ruby always chose Chow King. Always.

"They have sushi, hibachi _and_ a sundae bar," Ruby explained, emphasizing "sundae bar" as if she had won an argument with her sister before an argument had even begun.

"Not to mention all the chicken wings Dad can eat," Ruby added, running her fingers through her dark-gold hair, a habit she had inherited or learned or whatever from said Dad.

Megan saw said Dad grin one of his rare grins. Even Mom smiled. With her ice-blue eyes and super-straight white-blond hair, she was the picture of poise and grace. Even her name was "Grace." Ruby shared her name. "Ruby Grace". Too bad she hadn't inherited _that_ trait, Meg thought with a smirk.

" _Good_ chicken wings, dear?" Emma prompted with a smirk very similar to her eldest daughter's.

Meg knew her mother was trying to seem cool and nonchalant in the face of Ruby's almost rabid enthusiasm, but even Meg would admit her sister's silliness was infectious. And right now Emma Frost, the White Queen as she was called by many (and with more than a hint of fear by most), was doing her best not to crack up.

"Listen, Mamma," said Ruby, scowling in a way that was eerily similar to her father's trademark frown. "You can go to Food Rodeo and pay eight bucks - discluding the soda - and eat their sterling chicken wings and then feel bad about it for the rest of your life."

Emma rolled her eyes - both at the term "discluding" and the way Ruby pronounced "Row-Day-Oh."

" _Or_ you can come to Chow King where you get a never-ending supply of wings _and_ a sundae bar," Meg concluded, deadpan, her face a mask of seriousness. The freckled 14-year-old ducked her blond head, only a shade darker than Emma's, and blew bubbles in her water glass through the straw.

Unable to bear it any longer, Emma Frost and Scott Summers laughed in unison.

"I knew I liked you for some reason, big sis!" the youngest (not to mention rowdiest) of the Summers family crowed as Ruby threw her strong arm around her "big" sister.

Of course, "big" was used only in terms to relate Meg and Ruby's ages. For all intents and purposes, Ruby was the "big" sister. She stood a head taller than Meg and her outrageous personality, crazy dark-blonde curls and the fact that her very skin was bio-organic ruby-quartz crystal made the youngest Summers sister seem even bigger ...

And that description didn't even include the part about Ruby shooting concussive beams out of her eyes.

So "big" was only used to describe Meg's seniority - and barely that.

Today, Ruby turned 14. In just a few weeks, Meg would turn 15, so for one magical month the Summers sisters were the same age.

... And Meg knew Ruby would enjoy every last moment of it.

"Try to be quiet, girls," Emma chided her daughters, though her very pointed look was aimed directly at her youngest offspring.

Meg noticed patrons and staff at surrounding tables beginning to turn, stare and (some) smile knowingly at her family. Thanks to Ruby, the Summers were regulars at this restaurant and most of the servers, chefs and other regular diners were all too familiar with Ruby's boisterousness.

 _We could communicate telepathically_! Ruby suggested cheerfully thru the psychic link her mother, an extremely powerful telepath, had established amongst her family when Meg was two years old. Ruby wasn't telepathic; neither was her father, but - thanks to Emma's psy-link - the Summers could stay in touch with one another wherever they were and no matter how far apart they traveled.

"No thank you," Meg replied verbally, scowling. Like her mother, Meg was a powerful psychic, but her great raw telepathic ability was yet to be tempered by training and experience as Emma's had.

Like many young telepaths, Meg suffered greatly in crowded areas, such as this restaurant, and people's many jumbled thoughts and emotions pressing in on her mind which was predisposed to detect all of them.

Emma Frost had taught her eldest child since Meg was a toddler to put up mental shields in her mind to keep out all the loud static of others' countless barrage of thought. That took concentration, however, and particularly strong emotions or feelings from others always got thru no matter how fastidiously Meg kept up her psy-shields.

Meg's reason to avoid crowds. And needless telepathic chatter with her sister and parents. Even now, she could feel a nasty headache setting up around her temples. Her father seemed to sense it and gazed thoughtfully at his daughter - or at least, he turned in her direction and she assumed looked at her. Meg had never seen her father's eyes. No one she knew had. He had the concussive ocular beams Ruby had inherited and, like Ruby, Scott - nor anyone else - had ever found a way of controlling them short of constantly wearing protective eye-wear to contain the beams. Ruby always wore shades too, but hers were black unlike Scott's red visor.

Scott gave Meg a sympathetic smile and squeezed her hand. Funny how he could communicate with his daughter without words _or_ telepathy, Meg thought. Right now, she knew that he knew she was stressed by the pressure of others' thoughts and maintaining mental barriers and was willing to offer her a break from it all.

Meg, however, just gave her father a brave smile in return. There was no reason for her to spoil this night out for her family; they were all usually so busy. The Summers rarely had time to spare for family gatherings. Emma Frost was the headmistress of the Jean Grey School and Scott Summers (better known as the hero Cyclops) was still the co-leader of the super-powered team the X-Men, though nowadays he was relying more and more on Rachel, his eldest child and Meg and Ruby's half-sister, to take on his leadership duties.

Ruby had joined and bested every extracurricular activity she had encountered and every boy Meg knew of at the Jean Grey School was both in awe and in love with her fiery sister whether they said so or not - their thoughts surrounding Ruby were LOUD. It was awful.

Meg was no slouch, however. Emma Frost expected her daughters' very best and they usually delivered. (A bit haphazardly on Ruby's part, but the youngest Summers did try and most often triumphed in her endeavors even if that usually meant beating whatever adversary - abstract or otherwise - presented itself to Ruby senseless.)

Meg was President of the School's Fabric Tech Guild and Small Mammals Domestication Clubs. She had been breeding Angora rabbits since she was six when she received her first (and most beloved) Angora buck, Kingsley, and was the alpha leader of the School's sole alpaca herd which inhabited a pleasant paddock by the stables.

Living their lives was more than enough to keep the Summers occupied; Meg did not want to mess up this rare occasion they could be together - and Ruby's big night at that.

Cyclops, the stern leader of the X-Men, would offer Meg a reprieve from her telepathic struggles. Emma would not. A telepath herself, she had been thru the same struggles as her daughter and without the careful mentoring Emma gave her child. Maintaining composure in such a setting as this was good practice for a budding telepath, she would tell Meg gravely. Emma Frost expected her to tough it out. Meg expected that of herself as well - Ruby and her father could never "turn off" their powers. Why should she complain about hers?

"Let's move on to school," Scott announced, following the customary schedule the Summers' family gatherings usually took. Scott Summers seldom swerved from a Plan. Meg knew her dad's powers weren't the only thing he had trouble "turning off."

"Yuck! Why?" Ruby groaned. Unlike Meg, Ruby had no trouble making her feelings known. "Winter Break is about to start. NO SCHOOL!" she shouted in a voice that should be reserved for hockey rinks, Meg thought.

"Ruby, please!" Emma snapped angrily.

"Oh, sorry, Mamma," Ruby replied meekly. Then she "shouted" as loudly as possible thru the family's psy-link: _NO SCHOOL_! setting Meg and her father's teeth on edge.

"Ruby Grace _Summers_!" Emma snarled, employing the "three names" both daughters dreaded to hear. "If you want to live to see your fifteenth birthday, you will desist from shouting -"

Ruby sputtered: "B-But I wasn't verbally -"

"Telepathically or otherwise," Emma growled.

"Yes, Mamma ..." Ruby squeaked. She looked so mollified, Meg giggled. She couldn't help it; she was roaring with laughter mentally anyway. Emma would "hear" one way or the other. Scott snorted with laughter and tried to hide it in his water glass. Nothing escaped the White Queen, however. Emma glared at all of them ... before her stern demeanor cracked into a smile.

"All right," she sighed, closing her eyes momentarily. "I reserve judgment on you, Ruby Grace, because this is your birthday."

"But keep it down, Rube," Scott put in with a smile. "Because the maitre d' is going to throw us out."

"Kay, Daddy," Ruby said innocently before launching into her latest exploits as the "Grey Bay" goalie.

It did not escape Meg's notice that her "little" sister had earned her position as goalie because she had accidentally slashed every other player she encountered, opposing or otherwise. The other kids were just too scared to go out on the ice to face Ruby. Ruby was an excellent goalie though; she had her father's razor-edge precision and aim. When her boisterous nature was contained to a small space where she could focus on a specific target ... Well, there was a reason the Grey Bay's were undefeated since appointing Ruby Summers goalie.

She could even destroy the hockey puck with her concussive force beams; of course, this was completely against the rules - or at least it was now that Ruby Summers was on the ice.

Ruby just loved explosions. She loved pushing and shoving and general roughhousing. Ruby was also a member of the "Grey Frays" - the School roller derby league. There, she could shove and throw her elbows around as much as she liked, but, as in hockey, no eye-beams were allowed on the rink.

They were, however, in the Danger Room. Ruby had been putting her powers to the test in the School's holographic training arena since she turned 13. Her parents figured either allow their daughter to do it or face an "accidental" hole in the roof or shattered dry-wall via Ruby's eye-beams every other day. Like her Dad, Ruby contained an incredible power behind her dark glasses and had to let it out occasionally.

Sometimes it was hard to believe she and Meg were related, let alone sisters. Ruby and Scott would sometimes just blow off steam incinerating concrete blocks or clay pigeons in the backyard. Even the old films father and daughter binged on were full of exploding buildings and burning vehicles. Meg's idea of a fun Saturday was calmly spinning fiber into thread or experimenting on a new crochet stitch.

It wasn't something Meg was ashamed of - she could thank her ultra-supportive mom for that; as long as she strove to be the best at what she was good at, Emma allowed her to pursue what she wanted - it was just ... there were others, like her Uncle Hank and her best friend, Jeannie, who were more similar to Meg than her own sister and there were times it filled her with confusion and an emotion similar to wistfulness.

"Megan?" Emma prompted her eldest daughter, frowning the way she always did when she caught Meg daydreaming - which was more often than Emma liked, Meg thought.

"Oh," Meg started, jerking her elbow off the table the way she did when she was caught mooning about. She sat up a bit straighter, the way everyone did when the White Queen's blue eyes were on them. "I am experimenting with a new hybrid thread; _quivet_ \- very light - but with the hardiness and weatherproof qualities of alpaca fleece and then, of course, the softness of rabbit Angora ..."

Meg's blue eyes lit up and she began to speak rapidly the way she always did when she was talking about something she enjoyed - in this case fiber technology.

... And Ruby's mouth began to sag slightly as she zoned out. Family rule dictated all members must pay attention and at the very least acknowledge what a speaker was saying, but Meg excused her sister for being bored. Meg knew enough to understand that for many people advances in fiber tech could seem a bit ... dull, especially to someone like Ruby who immediately lost interest in something if it didn't include some sort of explosion within the first five minutes.

Hell, the fact her sister was making an _effort_ to listen to Meg's latest exploits was a huge credit to Ruby's sisterly devotion.

Meg could tell Emma sensed Ruby's wandering attention by the scowl she was giving the oblivious Ruby. Meg could too; Ruby's thoughts were never discreet. If Meg were to intentionally delve into her sister's mind, she would (as she would with any person) find a whirlwind of jumbled thoughts and emotions. Skimming the surface of Ruby's thoughts, however, Meg found her sister was wondering what her concussive beams could do to a hibachi grill. She was also thinking about what different flavors of soda would taste like mixed together and - the thought always niggling around at the back of Ruby's mind - _dogs_.

Meg guessed the next topic of discussion: Ruby's birthday present. Her whole family had been delaying this conversation the entire evening, but Meg thought it best to get it over with, so she wrapped up her School presentation with: "In essence, a hypoallergenic fabric perfect for a functioning uniform."

"Very good," Emma smiled, in genuine pleasure. Emma Frost adored both her children, and whatever thoughts she let slip to Meg never betrayed this sentiment, but there were times Meg wondered if the prim and beautiful White Queen had bargained for a child as rambunctious as Ruby.

Ruby was almost bursting as Meg finished speaking. Meg didn't miss the almost-panicking look her mother gave her father. It wasn't often the White Queen squirmed and Meg sat back with a smirk to enjoy the show.

Emma glared at Meg who just shrugged. _Sorry, Mom. It's Ruby's birthday. Not mine_ , she sent her thoughts Emma's way. _You and Dad are on your own with this one._

 _Supportive as always, Megan,_ Emma grumped thru their pys-link.

Ruby, privy to all this, of course, piped up: "Can we talk about my birthday present now?"

Emma smiled at her youngest child. "Ruby _Grace_ ," she said, a sure sign of nervousness. Nervousness and Emma Frost did not belong in the same sentence. Hell, _apprehension_ did not. Oh, this was going to be good, thought Meg, sipping her water. Her father ran his fingers thru his already-rumpled hair. She noted, not for the first time, the greying hairs sprouting at his temples.

Emma cleared her throat. "Ruby," she said. The White Queen rarely repeated herself. She rarely had to.

"I'm not getting a dog this year ..." Ruby said, staring down at her place-mat. Meg felt her sister's intense emotions radiating like heat. Feeling Ruby's disappointment was like coming down from an intense high. Ruby wasn't sullen or whining ... just sad. For the thirteenth year, she'd been let down. Yet she still wasn't resigned. Meg didn't know if that made it better or not. As much as Meg enjoyed seeing her always-in-control parents so uncomfortable, she felt intensely sorry for her sister.

Most kids' first words are "Mama" or "Da-Da." Ruby's first word was "dog." Ruby was obsessed with dogs. Ruby, who avoided reading anything besides school texts she was forced to, filled her room with informative books and posters on dogs - their physiology, their breeds, their habits. Ruby chattered incessantly about dogs: what dog she would own, what she would name it, the games and tricks they would do. Ruby's fondest wish was to own one.

Meg had to admit it was very annoying, a little pathetic ... but also pretty sad. Especially since, for the past 13 years, their parents had denied it. Meg suspected other parents might just break down and give their daughter what she so desperately wanted; but other parents were not Emma Frost and Scott Summers.

And other kids might have finally given up on their dream and moved on to focus on other things. But then again, not all kids were Ruby Frost-Summers.

Meg readied herself for the tired debate she listened to on every one of Ruby's birthdays. Her blue eyes darted between Ruby and her parents' side of the table like she was watching a tennis match.

"Rube, pets adopted on birthdays are usually given impulsively," Scott said.

"But it wouldn't be impulsive!" Ruby said, bringing her fists down on the table and making the water glasses rattle. Emma flashed her youngest daughter her trademark icy-cold warning glare; it could (and had) made the X-Men's worst foes pause and reconsider their life choices. But Meg knew Ruby was meeting that icy gaze with her own concussive-beam-generating eyes.

"Sorry, Mamma," Ruby said quickly. Even her most headstrong child wouldn't antagonize the White Queen. "But it wouldn't be," she couldn't help herself adding. That might have sounded like whining coming from any other kid, but Meg admitted that her sister wasn't begging; she was just stating facts.

"I have wanted a dog since I could remember. I've researched the best breeds to suit my lifestyle, my personality and my capabilities. Their care and training. I've even searched out reputable breeders. I would know both my puppy's parents and their home environments and upbringing," Ruby ticked off each point on her fingers.

At first glance to many people, Ruby seemed flippant and reckless, but her sister knew that couldn't be further from the truth. When Ruby was focused on a goal, she did her homework and wouldn't be swerved from her desired prize.

"I am ready for this," Ruby said with conviction.

"Are you?" Scott asked his youngest, slanting an eyebrow down at her.

"Yes!" Ruby snapped. "Meg has owned rabbits since ..."

Meg opened her mouth in indignation. She felt sorry for her sister for being denied what she wanted most, but this opinion of Ruby's always pissed off Meg. She was about to argue back when her father swooped in with a response.

"Meg's rabbits are strictly livestock," Scott said in a stern tone he had led the X-Men with for years. "Raised for a particular agricultural purpose."

"In this case, fiber," Meg couldn't help but add. Though she appreciated her dad's input, she was more than capable of standing up for herself, especially to Ruby.

"Plus, rabbits are not dogs. And Meg's rabbits are not pets. A dog would be," Scott continued. "A dog is a predator, built to live in a pack environment. Meg's rabbits view her alone as a provider. A dog would change the entire dynamic of our family; its role in our home would effect everyone else's life. It would essentially be, in some ways, like having a younger sibling. A dog thrives in a family hierarchy in which it is constantly jostling for position - without the proper training, that position might be superior to _you_."

Meg couldn't see it, but she could tell her dad was sizing up Ruby the same way he sized up an opponent or a follower - a soldier, someone worthy to fight for him and someone worthy to be led. Cyclops had been doing that almost his entire life. He was a leader, balancing stringent command with compassion and caring for his teammates ... and weighing the sacrifices he and his followers took to reach an objective against the hardship that placed upon his team.

Meg very vaguely understood the difficult life her father led before she and her sister were born; Scott had done everything in his power to shield his youngest children from the harshness of the world they lived in. Even nowadays, for children like Ruby and Meg - children with extremely powerful gifts - life was very hard beyond their sheltered home.

Scott and Emma's daughters were growing up fast, however, and the time to teach them of the dangers outside the safety of their family home was running out.

"I _know_ all that," Ruby said in exasperation.

"Your research has led you to believe that," Emma corrected her. "You haven't experience, my dear, that turns knowledge into wisdom."

Scott was facing Ruby. Meg had trouble reading her father's expression because his eyes were always covered. She could tell now, however, that he was thoughtful.

"Maybe Ruby deserves that chance, Emma," Scott said slowly in the same tone he always used when he was reaching a decision.

The thing about Cyclops was he had lived with telepaths for such a long time he almost had an immunity to telepathy in general, sort of like a person develops an immunity to disease after being exposed to it for so long. That made her father both easy for Meg to be around, since his thoughts weren't constantly bombarding her mind, and hard for her to read telepathically. He was one of the few people who could genuinely surprise Meg.

And her mother.

Emma Frost was seldom surprised by anything and she didn't like it, Meg could tell, even (especially) when it came from Cyclops. Meg knew it hurt her mom's pride that he was as immune to her telepathy as he was to his daughter's.

Emma's blue eyes widened at Scott. "We should let Ruby get a dog?" she asked him in a "but-we-did-not-discuss-this" voice.

Scott answered carefully because Ruby was starting to make the silverware shake by bouncing in her seat. "Eventually, yes," he stated calmly.

"Eventually ...?" Ruby echoed, a bit crestfallen. Only a bit. This was the furthest she had even gotten on her dog-ownership campaign.

Scott replied before Emma could which made the White Queen narrow her eyes in frustration. "Ruby had done her research, as you said," he explained. "Hell, she's more prepared to own a dog than most people are to become parents," he pointed out wryly. "More prepared than _we_ were." Meg had to bite her lip to keep from smirking at this. Ruby was suspiciously quiet at this remark. She was so close to capturing her goal; Meg could almost hear her sister holding her breath.

Emma scowled. She had never said anything in front of Ruby before, but Meg knew her mother disliked dogs. Meg did too. She found them barbaric and distasteful, great loud brutes always making noise and trouble. And they chased down cute little innocent animals like rabbits and _ate_ them. But stating these opinions to Ruby would have broken her heart and, deep down, Meg would have died before doing that.

Besides, even Meg would admit a dog could be well-trained and there wasn't a doubt in her mind that her little sister would do it faithfully.

Scott turned to Emma questioningly. Emma shut her eyes and sighed. She didn't like being out-voiced, even by Cyclops, her leader and father of her children.

Then she looked directly at Meg. "What does Megan think?" she asked.

Meg was shocked. Two surprises in one evening was a bit too much for her. Her parents had never asked her opinion in this debate. Meg frankly thought it was none of her business.

 _It is your business, honey, because you'll have to live with this decision every day just like the rest of us_ , Emma's telepathic "voice" chimed in her head.

Meg smiled. Still, it was nice to be asked. It made her feel so ... grown-up.

She took a long sip of water; she was thirsty and wanted time to carefully think about how to respond, but she also wanted to tease Ruby who was almost shaking next to her with impatience.

Finally, Meg replied, "I think Ruby should get her dog. She'd done her homework. Let her have an experience."

Ruby's expression could be just as hard to read as her father's, but her thoughts radiated surprise and gratitude for her sister. So much so, Meg was afraid she might hug her in public. Then she knew she would literally die.

Currently, the youngest Summers looked like she might scream.

Emma, sensing this, said gravely: "Ruby Grace, if you disobey my directive of no shouting, this decision will be rescinded."

Ruby put both her hands over her mouth to keep from doing so. All the other Summers laughed happily.

 **###**

Ruby was dancing around Meg's room, singing along to her annoying and offensive music. Both girls were in pajamas and ready for bed.

" _I ain't easy, I ain't sleazy, I got reasons why I tease 'em. Boys come and go like seasons_ ," Ruby sang raucously along with the singer's voice pouring out of Ruby's ear-buds.

Then she broke into a freestyle of: " _But I'm gettin' a dog, oh yeah_!"

Megan glared at her sister over the instructive hologram video she was watching on _quivet_ production. "Ugh," she grumbled. "I'm considering rescinding my previous decision."

Meg scowled in an expression almost identical to Emma's. With her long light-blond hair and blue eyes, excluding the freckles, she could have been her mother's miniature. Ruby stopped to do a double-take and tripped over Meg's bean-bag chair. Meg howled with laughter and Ruby, who loved jokes even at her own expense, joined in gleefully.

 _Girls ... a little less noise_ , Emma's warning telepathically chimed in their minds.

 _Bed is in ten_ , Scott's "voice" added.

Ruby usually would have argued, but she would have jumped over the moon for her parents tonight. Meg worried exactly how her sister was going to get to sleep, she was so excited. She wondered if their mom would have to telepathically shut Ruby's brain down into a calmer state. As a parent, Emma Frost _could_ do that ...

"But I do my best to avoid that, darling. Why, I haven't telepathically influenced my daughters' sleep-patterns since Ruby turned four," Meg purred, sounding so much like her mother, Ruby clamped her hands over her mouth and rolled on the floor in silent giggle fits.

 _I can still hear you_! Emma huffed into her daughters' brains.

"Hearing is defined by the ear detecting noise, darling," Meg continued, in her mother's honey-sweet tones. "Sound is the comprehension of meaning in said noise ... Both impossible via telepathy."

 _Megan Katherine Summers_! Emma snapped telepathically.

"Oops, three names!" Ruby giggled, when she could gasp air long enough to speak. "You're in trouble, Meggie!"

Meg grinned when she sensed Emma's slight bemusement. Her mother probably hadn't bargained on her eldest child causing the ruckus tonight. Meg usually wasn't the troublemaker of the family.

 _Meg, tone it down, or you can go to bed an hour earlier next week_ , Scott warned thru the psy-link.

 _Yes, Dad_ , Meg replied. _And sorry, Mom_.

 _We love you, Mamma_! Ruby chimed in.

Meg could almost see her mother pinching the bridge of her nose as she wondered why having two girls was so stressful.

 _Love you, girls_ , Emma replied. Even her telepathic "voice" dripped with weariness.

Meg returned to half-watching her video. Ruby scampered over to her bed and jumped up on it, causing her sister to bounce slightly. Meg scowled at her sister, who beamed back, her face one big grin. Ruby's music was still playing so loudly, Meg could hear every obnoxious lyric pounding out of her sister's ear-buds. Ruby pushed her curly head against Meg's shoulder. It was an annoying, but oddly endearing, habit of Ruby's, something she had done to her sister since she was a baby.

"What?" Meg demanded.

"You love meee!" Ruby whispered.

"I. Do. Not!" Meg hissed.

"You love me! You love me!" Ruby chanted softly.

Meg tried very hard to frown, but she couldn't. She grinned. "What makes you think that?" she asked.

"Y-You stood up for me ..." her sister replied almost shyly.

"I was stating facts," Meg said with a sniff.

"But you voted in my favor," Ruby argued.

"'Voting' would suggest a democratic process in which each of us influenced the outcome; this was ultimately Dad and Mom's decision."

"But you swayed their decision. They listen to you. You're their _favorite_."

Meg opened her mouth to argue, then shut it. Her pale cheeks flushed.

"W-What? I am not!" she said, flustered.

"Yes you are!" Ruby exclaimed. "You're quiet and sweet and look just like Mom, so of course you're Daddy's Little Girl. And you're a genius not to mention a telepath, so Mamma loves you."

"B-But you blow stuff up with Dad!" Meg stammered. "I never do that! If I tried to break stuff I would be too worried about fixing it. And you're so tall and beautiful like Mom. And you're not scared of anything!"

"Ugh, stupid, you know you're better than me. Just admit it!" Ruby growled.

"Stupid yourself! You're the best!" Meg snapped.

"No! You're the best!"

Ruby wrapped her arms around her sister and they grappled around until they landed on the floor. It had been a long time since the sisters had wrestled anyone outside of the combat training School required of them. Ruby's bigger size, of course, bested Meg, but the smaller Summers still put up a pretty good fight (though Meg found fighting with her mind easier than her muscle) - until she thought about their father.

"Ruby! Stop it!" she hissed as her sister put her in a headlock. "Dad will ground me if he finds out we're scuffling in here."

"No, he won't because you're his _favorite_ ," Ruby replied, smirking, and letting go of her sister.

Meg hit her with a throw pillow, but for once Ruby didn't fight back; she just laughed.

Meg sprawled back on her bed and Ruby climbed up to lay down beside her sister. They lay nose to nose, the same way they did when they were little and sharing secrets. Meg could see her reflection in Ruby's shades. Before bed, Ruby would put on a protective sleep mask over her eyes in case she woke up in the night and carelessly opened her eyes. Not for the first time, Meg wondered what her sister's eyes looked like. What color were they? Probably blue since everyone on both sides of their family had blue eyes. No one knew for sure, however. Even as an infant, Ruby had had to wear protective eye-gear to contain her concussive beams.

Meg found it strange, on the occasions she had skimmed her sister's thoughts (which were often), that Ruby didn't resent her powers. There were times when Meg certainly resented hers. Ruby's seemed unfair, even debilitating, but Ruby seemed to love her powers. Probably because they caused explosions, Meg thought drolly.

Right now, Ruby's thoughts seeping past Meg's psy-barriers were consumed, as usual, with dogs.

"I thought you didn't like dogs," Ruby said suddenly. "I _know_ Mamma doesn't."

"Um, well, I don't generally," Meg replied, somewhat surprised. Ruby was perceptive, though it was sometimes hard to tell with her rambunctiousness and alongside such a thoughtful sister as Meg. "And, yes, Mom doesn't either, but I - I mean, _we_ \- know you'll train your dog to behave properly."

 _You better_ , was tacked onto Meg's response although she didn't say it. "And keep your dog away from my rabbits!" she added sternly.

"Oh, I will!" Ruby said, beginning to wriggle with excitement again. "I've thought about a herding dog. It will have energy and drive, but I do too, so we'll help each other out."

"Will you be training it or will it be training you?" Meg quipped.

"Ha, ha," Ruby replied humorlessly.

"Well, this is as much for your benefit, experience-wise," Meg replied. She frowned suddenly. "Speaking of ... I was surprised by Dad's response this evening."

"How do you mean?" asked Ruby, cocking her head.

"Dunno if you've noticed, but Dad's ultra-protective of us."

"He let me train in the Danger Room," Ruby pointed out.

"Only on Level One and only because he had to rebuild the back porch," said Meg, rolling her eyes. "And also, never alone. Mom and Dad are always with you. Or Oliza or Toad."

"Daddy hasn't even let me join a DR team yet," Ruby agreed thoughtfully.

Meg almost regretted her words. She hoped she hadn't planted a seed of resentment in her cheerful sister. Meg really didn't want Ruby to start on a new campaign now that she was allowed to get a dog.

Meg rolled over on her back. "Dad tries to shelter us from the outside world," she mused. But what disturbed Meg more was that her father's attitude didn't really bother her. She enjoyed her little insular world of School, her rabbits, her parents, her sister, her friends. In three weeks she would be 15 years old. Why didn't she want more than this?

"He's had a hard life. Mamma too. Sometimes I wonder just how hard," Ruby said. Meg glanced appraisingly at her sister; Ruby was rarely pensive, but when she was she approached introspection like anything else, throwing her whole being into it. "He never talks about it. At least, not with us. And never with Mamma or Uncle Hank that _I_ know of," Ruby added, jerking her chin at Meg in a pointed way.

"Well, I certainly don't," Meg stated, a little coldly. "You know Dad is practically immune to telepathy and I wouldn't pry into Uncle Hank's mind. I wouldn't pry into any mind."

That was the first rule of ethical telepathy. Meg was taught since infancy to build up barriers to others' thoughts and emotions to keep them from overwhelming her. She didn't need to go intentionally looking into others' minds.

But then ... she had never just _asked_ Dad or Uncle Hank. Uncle Hank was one of Meg's best friends and probably her father's closest and oldest friend.

Why had she never just asked him about her father's past or his own? They were both founding members of the X-Men, but that was about all she knew about their lives before she was born. And, apparently, that was all they wanted her to know. Meg had never thought about it before and now it deeply disturbed her - not so much they might be keeping these things from her or that she didn't care, but that it had never crossed her mind before.

"Mamma wants us to be prepared for anything the world throws at us," Ruby said. "She was the one who convinced Daddy to let me train in the DR, you know."

"Really? It wasn't the fact he had to keep rebuilding our house?" Meg joked.

Ruby stuck her tongue out at her sister. "But both their approaches are futile," she murmured. "Mamma can't prepare us for everything we'll encounter out there no more than Dad can protect us from it all."

There were times when Meg couldn't believe she was related to this crazy girl, but then there were moments like this when something inside them both clicked and they seemed as similar as if they were the same person. Meg smiled at her sister and somewhat impulsively kissed the tip of Ruby's red nose.

Ruby's eyebrows shot up in surprise, then she grinned and whispered: "You _do_ love me!"

"Guilty ..." Meg replied sleepily.

 _Bed now, girls_ , Emma told her daughters telepathically.

 _May I sleep in Meg's room, Mamma_? Ruby asked.

The girls occasionally slept in one another's rooms. The ritual had begun when they were both two years old. Meg was petrified of thunderstorms; she still was, an irrational fear she was ashamed of, but even as a toddler, Ruby (who even then feared nothing and no one as far as Meg could tell) sensed her sister's need for reassurance and took to cuddling with her on her baby cot.

Meg knew her mom disapproved, but Emma Frost had learned to chose her battles as a parent. She knew there were times like this when her girls just wanted the close comfort of one another. Now that they were growing up, those occasions were becoming scarce.

 _All right, but no more talking - verbally or otherwise_ , Emma responded.

When the girls spent the night in one another's rooms, each was supposed to sleep on a cot by the bed, but of course they disobeyed this rule and their mother had never enforced it. Ruby snuggled closer to his sister; Meg sensed her sister's brain shutting down and drifting away into the world of dreams which were inhabited, of course, by millions of barking, snuffling, running, panting, large and small dogs chasing butterflies and squirrels and sniffing each other's butts.

Just as she thought Ruby was completely out, her sister murmured sleepily: "Meggie, we're both fourteen ..."

Meg smiled. It was extremely rare occasions like this that made her thankful she wasn't an only-child.


	2. Wings

**Guten Tag everyone! This chapter will focus primarily on Warren Worthington (AKA Angel) and his adorable family.**

 **To Ogygian Spring - an Angel fan - I hope you enjoy!**

 **Angel and Psylocke belong to Marvel. Siryn too. Tom and the children are my own personal characters.**

 **I got inspired by Sia's "Rainbow" while writing this.**

 ** _"You fall so low but shoot so high_**

 ** _Big dreamers shoot for open sky_**

 ** _So much life in those open eyes."_**

 **I hope you enjoy! Please read & review! I really want to know your thoughts. I love feedback. **

**Thanks and cheers,**

 **Maria**

 _ **Chapter II: Wings**_

"Arghh, let's _go_ , Sparrow!" Peregrine Worthington shouted at her youngest brother.

Sparrow glanced down. He couldn't help it, no more than he could help being called "Sparrow" by his sister and brother, even though his true name was "Sparrowhawk," named for a proud flying predator the same way his sister, Peregrine, and brother, Griffin, were. His siblings insisted on calling the youngest of the Worthingtons after a meek runty little seed-pecker.

It made sense, however. Sparrow _was_ small for his age and the flight feathers that grew from his arms and shoulders were tawny-brown, the exact coloration of a common house sparrow. Even his light tawny hair had rust-colored feathers growing at the nape of his neck and on a messy shock of hair than swung down in his eyes. Sparrow's large blue eyes were his grandfather's, as was his middle name, "Warren," technically making Sparrow "Warren Worthington V." His grandpa was a famous flier – one of the best – with the beautiful snow-white wings of an eagle. Sparrow wondered if he would ever grow into that name, that legacy. His mother, Irene, and his father, Tom, assured their son he was a handsome boy and they loved him, but they never even hinted at any assurance he would grow up to be the talented hero his grandfather was.

It was one of two major problems for little Sparrow, age nine. As soon as he old enough to toddle out of his family's aerie, when his flight feathers were just beginning to grow out of the soft tawny-grey fluff that had covered his upper body since birth, his parents had decided the time had come for their son to learn to fly. After all, their family home – or aerie – was situated within a cave high on a cliff overlooking the sea. The crashing sound of waves pounding the foundation of their lofty home was Sparrow's first memory as he lay snuggled against his mother's breast. That and the winged shapes of his sister and brother frolicking and flying in the air just beyond the cave mouth with their grandfather.

Peregrine Rebecca Worthington, age 14, was a precocious flier. She had the body of a human girl – or at least that's what the grownups told Sparrow and his siblings; the children had never seen a human before. But Perri had the beautiful silver-blue wings of a peregrine falcon growing out of her shoulder-blades. Everything about Perri was streamlined, from her sleek violet hair that ruffled up a bit in the back like a falcon's crest to her slightly slanted eyes which were violet too; she had inherited her purple hair and eyes from her grandmother, Betsy, and her aunt, Tom's sister, Becky, for whom she was named.

She had a falcon's speed, however. No, Perri was faster than a falcon, faster than the fastest. Faster than anyone Sparrow knew, except for their Da, Tom. Tom was so fast he could literally make those around him slow down.

Needless to say, Perri was the fastest of her siblings and the strongest flier. Their parents often boasted she had learned to fly before she learned to walk, which was true.

Griffin Cassidy Worthington, age 12, was a strong flier too, but not as swift as his sister. Easygoing and a bit zany, Griff maintained he could see and do more when he wasn't flying as fast as Perri. Of course, he _couldn't_ fly as fast as his sister; however, it was true Griff could _listen_ far better than her. Griff inherited his father's owlish characteristics. Tom, having the body (more or less) of a human male, had the gorgeous tawny brown-flecked wings of a short-eared owl. Tom, whose nickname was in fact "OWL," had many of an owl's capabilities, including its super-sense of hearing. Like an owl, Tom even had facial muscles that could contract to better funnel sound to his ears. He could hear a butterfly flapping its wings a mile away in the middle of a thunderstorm.

Griff wasn't quite that good, but, like his Da, he preferred to fly in complete darkness. Ocular vision distracted him, he said. He liked to rely on echolocation – bouncing sound off an object to paint an echo-image in his mind. For this reason, Griff usually flew wearing a blindfold.

Griff and Tom shared the same personality too, but Griff had his Mum's gingery curls, green eyes and more freckles than stars in the sky. Unlike Perri and Sparrow, rusty feathers covered every inch of his body and each on his twelve fingers and toes were tipped in a razor-sharp talon. Griff actually weighed the least of the siblings (None of them weighed much as all their bones were hollow and birdlike.) But he looked as fat and fluffy as a juvenile owl.

Sparrow wasn't a strong flier. He was actually better at falling which was unfortunate. His first steps took him waddling off the cliff-edge. Neither Irene nor Tom panicked. After all, this was how they learned to fly. When their youngest son didn't reappear flapping his wings, however, Tom dashed down the cliff-face in less than a second to save his boy from the sharp rocks below.

"Don't look down, Sparrow!" everyone from his sister to his grandpa told him, but he couldn't help it. Perri and Griff never looked down; Griff never looked, if fact. Why couldn't Sparrow just revel in the glory and freedom of the skies which was their birthright instead of worrying about plummeting down hundreds of feet and being smashed to a million pieces?

Sparrow knew he was lucky. He was surrounded by talented fliers – his Mum, his Da, his grandpa and sister – who mentored and coached him to use his wings properly. Tom had to teach himself to fly, guessing how to use his wings to prevent killing himself. Even worse, his grandfather (Sparrow's great-grandfather), had locked Tom away in a cage almost as soon as he learned to fly well. Warren Worthington Jr. had been ashamed of both his son and grandson. He had all but disowned Sparrow's grandpa for his wings – a fact that shocked and mortified Sparrow and his siblings; their grandpa was a highly talented flier and resplendent in his white wings. How could his own Da be ashamed, even fearful, of such a beautiful gift as his son possessed?

"You must remember things were very different for people like us back then," Warren Worthington III told his trio of grandchildren.

"People like us?" Perri asked, wrinkling her nose up in confusion at her grandpa. "You mean people with wings, Gran'pa?"

The siblings knew enough to understand not all people had wings like they did. Their Mum, for example, could fly without wings by emitting a beautiful, haunting call – thus her nickname "Siryn". Some people, the children had been told much to their horror, couldn't fly at all.

Warren smiled indulgently at his granddaughter, a certain wistfulness in his blue eyes. Sparrow knew his impetuous sister reminded their grandpa of his wife and daughter who the children had never met.

"People with powers – certain gifts," he explained patiently. "Many humans were very afraid of us when I was … younger," he added with a rougish grin. The children considered their grandpa an "old person," but with his wavy blonde hair and blue skin he was still devilishly handsome. "They were afraid of what we could do with our, er, powers."

"The power of flight?" Perri asked, still unsatisfied. "How could _that_ hurt anyone?"

"Well, some mutants – er, _Gifted_ – people have powers that can be destructive if they don't know how to control them. Your grandmother, Betsy, for instance had very powerful telekinetic gifts – manipulating things with her mind – telepathy too …" Warren addressed all his grandchildren, but his eyes lingered on Peregrine. She looked so much like Elizabeth Braddock Worthington, everyone in the family sort of expected Perri to eventually manifest telepathic or telekinetic powers. She had yet to, but then she was still very young. Sparrow secretly thought his sister didn't need one more accomplishment to flaunt. She was annoying enough pointing out his many flaws; a mind-reading sister would be insufferable, he imagined.

"She could have hurt many people if she wasn't in constant control of her powers," Warren said. "Many of us could have …" The words " _and did_ " were there even if not spoken. "Your Uncle Scott, for example, never learned to completely control his powers."

The children all sat up a straighter. They all loved hearing their grandpa's stories about the X-Men of which he was a founding member. But Perri could barely remember the kids' Uncle Scott Summers (better known as Cyclops) when she had been introduced to his family years ago. He had two daughters about Perri's age. Griff and Sparrow had never met them.

"Tell us about grandma now!" Perri demanded, her purple eyes glinting.

Warren chuckled. "Psylocke was very beautiful and very powerful, but – like the most amazing women – she didn't show it off much. She never had to," he murmured. He was laughing but his eyes seemed to glisten with an unmentionable sadness. The expression always seemed to haunt his grandfather's handsome features, Sparrow thought. It filled him with confusion just as Warren's stories of human prejudice and fear did. No matter how much Warren tried to explain it to him, Sparrow couldn't understand why his great-grandfather would disown his only son simply for possessing such beautiful wings.

At this point, someone, usually Irene, would interrupt the children's conversation with Warren and order her "chicks" outside to go flying. Irene was extremely perceptive – there were times Sparrow suspected his Mum to be a telepath, though she laughingly explained she was only a Mum. Right now, she could sense her father-in-law's emotional distress. Sparrow could too. He knew Warren didn't mind talking about his wife, but he also knew it hurt him in a way his grandchildren could never understand.

"Yeah, les' go flying!" Perri cried as oblivious to others' thoughts and feelings as she always was. _Ugh_ , thought Sparrow. And _she_ was supposed to be the psychic of the family?

Perri bolted off the cliff-edge gleefully, pulling herself out of the shallow dive easily. Hell, she could pull out of a 200-mile-per-hour dive without breaking a sweat. She hovered leisurely, waiting for her brothers to catch up. Griffin came next.

"Hurry up, bro!" snapped Perri.

"Hold up, sis!" Griff replied as he tied on his blindfold halfway off the ledge.

Next, Perri ordered Sparrow out of the aerie in her bossy way. Sparrow gave his Mum a pleading "do-I-have-to?" look.

"Go now, lad, y'know it's good practice," Irene replied in her odd, bouncy accent. "Y'know you're gettin' better, darlin'."

 _Better_? thought Sparrow. Better than what, exactly? A half-fledged tern? Or an old blind eagle? Sparrow was beginning to believe, as Perri often teased him, that hedgehogs could fly better than he could. With his grandfather's encouragement, Sparrow had learned to at least keep himself aloft, flitting from one perch to another like a nervous parakeet. But the boy could not fly any significant distance.

Perri boasted she could fly the length of the sea to Genosha; Sparrow didn't doubt she could.

"I'll go out with them, Rennie," Warren called to his daughter-in-law.

"Yer a Godsend, Da," Irene replied gratefully. The two had a close bond. She only occasionally saw her own parents. Warren had never had a chance to know his biological daughter and he certainly considered Rennie as his own.

Tom was out hunting. All three children had his voracious appetite and high metabolism. They also shared Tom's insatiable taste for live prey, namely small mammals. Perri, naturally, was an excellent huntress, specializing in snatching speedy pigeons out of the sky, no easy feat. Griff was no slouch either. Even voles and weasels tunneling under the leaf litter of their island home couldn't hide from his echolocation.

Sparrow, of course, was hopeless. The oldest, slowest rabbit on the island had nothing to fear from him.

Most of the family's hunting, however, was still left up to Tom. Irene, like many people outside her immediate family, preferred her food dead and cooked. Warren had a hunter's capabilities – he could spot a bug between two blades of grass while soaring a mile up – but he had always been too gentle for killing anything, so he always volunteered to watch the kids. Irene appreciated a break from her offspring and, of course, Warren took advantage of any opportunity to spend time with the grandchildren.

The tall winged man, made more imposing by his broad shoulders and 18-foot-wingspan, put a reassuring hand on Sparrow's thin shoulder. Sparrow wasn't sure what was worse: Perri's teasing of her youngest brother being a weak flier or Perri's teasing of the rest of the family treating him like a baby. The boy moodily shrugged off his grandfather's reassuring gesture, but Perri's raptor eyes had already seen.

"Hurry up, little chick!" she flung the insult over her shoulder. "Time to leave the nest!"

"Fly away, baby burdie!" Griff added, hooting with laughter.

Sparrow huffed and glanced down at the ocean waves pawing around the sentinel rocks like the feet of a huge beast as gulls, puffins and terns spiraled around, screaming. It was dizzying. Sparrow wanted to look away, but it was as though the sight hypnotized him. The lowering sun was dazzling on the water and turned the green-blue water violet and the white foam of the waves blood-red. Sparrow blinked rapidly and shook his tousled head. The constantly crashing and retreating waves almost seemed to … make _writing_ as it pooled around the rocks.

But that was silly …

"Com'on slow-slug!" Perri teased. "I saw a decrepit stork pass you the other day, Sparrow!"

Sparrow was still frowning at the water below when his sister swooped down … and "accidentally" knocked her brother off the cliff with her wingtip.

"Wha' the bloody 'ell?!" Sparrow heard his Mum's scream grow fainter as he plummeted towards the sharp boulders below that looked like huge animal teeth. Irene's accent became almost indiscernible when she was really angry. Sparrow's tears dried quicker than he could make them. The wind smothered out any other sounds from his ears.

Was it weird he had become so used to free-falling he became thoughtful during a plunge?

Suddenly, he remembered to spread his little wings. He was jerked upward like an umbrella in a gale. Then a fierce wind pounding the sea-cliffs caught the boy and sent him careening towards the jagged rock-walls. Sparrow desperately tried to navigate the sea winds; they were tricky. His grandpa's wings were built for soaring. Warren made maneuvering the warm upper drafts and cool ocean breeze look so easy, but Sparrow's small wings seemed as fragile as wet paper in the biting winds.

A wall of white feathers suddenly obstructed Sparrow's view as his grandfather caught the boy in a spectacular dive.

"Al'righ Gran'pa!" Griff shouted, punching the air with all four clawed feet. "Nice catch!"

"As usual," Perri commented, casually flapping her sleek wings. "Gran'pa's so used to saving Sparrow, of course he's great at it."

Warren glared at his eldest grandchild as he glided up to where she and Griff were hovering on a warm draft high in the air. "No thanks to you, Perri," he growled.

"It was an _accident_ – right, baby brother?" she asked, narrowing her violet eyes at Sparrow who was riding on his grandpa's shoulders. "Good thing Gran'pa was around, right?" Sparrow's cheeks burned; he hated when Perri treated him this way. Of course, she was the cause of all the trouble … but then she wasn't really either. It wasn't her fault Sparrow was such a weak flier and it _might_ have been an accident, after all, or an especially strong gust of wind might have knocked him off the ledge. It's not like Sparrow was going to snitch; he was too proud and too embarrassed to say anything.

"We wanna do the rings, Gran'pa!" Perri announced, flying east away from the orange sinking sun. Griff flapped after his sister.

"He's all right, Rennie!" Warren called to Irene, who was perched anxiously on the aerie ledge, watching her youngest son. "We're just going to check out the rings." Despite his sullen attitude, Sparrow was thankful his grandpa didn't make a big deal of his fall. The last thing he wanted was his Mum flying out here to check him over like he was a thoughtless chick.

The rings were inland, suspended almost a hundred feet in the air, high above the tumultuous sea breezes blowing in from the ocean. With the gentle grey-green down-lands rolling away underneath the winged family it was the perfect playground for fledglings. The sloping fields were broken occasionally by pleasant clusters of oak and elm trees which looked like dark-green blotches to the kids soaring high above them.

"I see a squirrel down there, Gran'pa!" Perri said. "On the branch of that crookedy elm. It has a bushy red tail!" She couldn't resist showing off. Of course, Sparrow couldn't see, but the pattern of the rolling downs, flecked by fluffy clusters of wild sheep was pleasant to look upon.

"But can you see its twisted front paw or the nick in its ear?" Warren asked his granddaughter. Not even Peregrine had Warren's eagle eyes. "It looks like it's scrapped with an owl before. Probably why it feels confident enough to sun itself on an exposed branch."

"Hmph! It better be glad I'm not hungry or it would be dead meat," Perri drawled. Sparrow rolled his eyes. Of course, Perri was probably hungry, but there was an unspoken rule in the family that no one hunted around Warren. He never complained, but Sparrow sensed his grandfather couldn't bear the sight of the little bodies twisted and broken in death.

Sparrow squinted down at the copse, straining to see what his sister saw. If she could - if his grandpa could - why couldn't he? But all Sparrow saw was the wind rippling thru the grasses beneath them, making graceful designs. He narrowed his eyes. Like the breaking waves, the patterns looked almost like writing - in a strange language Sparrow didn't understand.

Yes, now he was sure of it! The shapes made by the wind in the grass were spelling out letters ... _words_. What were they trying to tell him?

Presently, a sharp pain shot thru his head. Sparrow shut his eyes tightly. Warren must have noticed the boy tense up as his grandson sat on his shoulders, rolling slightly with the pulse of Warren's massive wing-beats.

"You OK, Sparrowhawk?" he asked in an undertone so Perri couldn't hear. Warren was the only person who called his youngest grandchild by his true name. Sparrow appreciated his grandpa doing both.

"Just a headache," Sparrow answered truthfully, but he didn't miss Warren's frown in response. Warren Worthington's sharp eyes missed nothing and he kept both of them on little Sparrow.

Griff, meanwhile, was all ears - literally. Sparrow couldn't see his eyes, of course, but Sparrow could tell from his sly grin that Griff had caught Warren and Sparrow's exchange. The slightest whisper wouldn't escape Griffin's ears.

The reason there was no way in hell Sparrow was mentioning what he perceived as writing in the landscape below; Warren wouldn't make fun of him. Hell, he might even understand ... Angel, as he had been called with the X-Men, had seen some unusual things in his tenor with the team. Sparrow's siblings, however, would not. They would tease him mercilessly.

Griffin, however, usually refrained from picking on his baby brother when Perri wasn't there to back him up. (Currently, she was flying far ahead of the boys.)

There were times Griff could almost be nice to Sparrow, when their sister wasn't around, of course.

Suddenly, Griff veered upward in a lightening-quick movement. Warren and Sparrow glanced up and saw the blindfolded boy, still grinning, with a tiger moth struggling, trapped, in one of his clawed feet. No one else had even noticed the brilliant insect pass by.

"Nice one, Griff!" Warren praised him.

But Sparrow, perched on Warren's shoulders, scowled at his older brother and shook his head. They weren't supposed to hunt in front of their grandfather.

"Relax, baby burdie, I'm letting it go," Griff said to Sparrow, still wearing his annoying smile under his blindfold. "It's good practice, lad," he added, mimicking Mum's fussing over Sparrow.

Sparrow glared at his big brother. Griffin couldn't ignore his instincts any more than he could resist teasing Sparrow.

The children and Warren glided up to the three massive bronzed rings, each with a twenty-foot radius. Towering poles looming high over the tallest trees suspended them in the air.

" _Watch me_!" Perri, sailing thru the air far ahead of the boys, cried out, her call similar to a falcon's shriek.

The girl shot up high in the sky, higher than the loftiest cloud and, folding her silvery wings to her sides, dropped. It was called the rapid stoop; this free-fall style was employed by falcons in the wild, but Perri had learned it from watching her Da. With her wings folded against her body, she became a living missile; alongside her father, she was the fastest thing on the planet.

Warren and his grandsons (Griff had removed his blindfold) watched in awe as Perri dove, ringing the first hoop, then the next. As she approached the third, her speed was blistering, beyond her record of 200-miles-per-hour. A faint and then burning pinkish aura began to hover around the girl. Sparrow heard his grandpa gasp and saw Griff tremble in shock. Perri was fast, but she had never done this before.

Thru slitted eyes, the male Worthingtons watched as the pink halo around Peregrine took the shape of a screaming falcon. Perri dove thru the third ring with the force of a bomb. As she pulled up from the dive, the power surrounding her seemed to set off a sonic boom, sending a deafening wave of sound and energy in a radius around the girl. It radiated away from Perri in a burst of pink energy, flattening the grasses below like a windstorm.

It blew frantically " _baaing_ " sheep away and caused massive waves to crash away from the island and out to sea. Huge boulders fell away with enormous splashes from the sea-cliffs and into the ocean.

Irene, alone in the aerie, glanced around nervously as she felt the cave tremble. Tom, soaring over the woods and closing in on a speedy hare, was blown into the branches of an overhanging tree.

The whole island shook as though from an earthquake.

And miles and miles away, on the island nation of Genosha, a dark form hanging upside down in a shadowy sanctuary, surrounded by slumbering bats, opened her large amber eyes at the disturbance. The bats, of course, heard it too with their sharp ears and rustled uneasily. To them, and to their mistress, it was the sound of an ancient enemy ...

 **###**

Tom Worthington grasped his mate's shoulders as Irene wound her fingers thru his long black hair; they were shaking slightly. After disentangling himself from the oak branches he'd been blown into, Tom had flown directly for the aerie to find Irene almost hysterical with fear.

"It's all right, Rennie," he soothed his pair bond. "If Dad is with the kids, we have nothing to fear."

"Twas an 'arthquake, Tommie," Irene whispered, her voice quivering like the earth had done but moments ago. "I felt it! The whole of the 'arth like a marshmallow."

"I did too," Tom agreed. He'd felt something else too, as if he had used his own telekinetic powers, which he very rarely did. Only he hadn't ... but Irene was frightened enough. No need to fuel the fire. "Good thing our kids are all fliers!" he told her with his goofy smile that she always found so charming - and so reassuring.

"Argh, the eldest two mebbe," Irene fretted, her green eyes wide and worried. She was stroking her husband's hair now, much like a raptor preening its mate. It was Rennie's way of calming down when she was severely frightened. With three winged offspring and the third not very strong, she did it more often now than ever before.

"Dad will look after Sparrow. You know he always does," Tom replied, beginning to fuss with the fringe of gingery hair that hung down over his wife's forehead. The sound of her heart, pounding like a terrified rabbit's, hammered against Tom's super-sensitive ears. It was beginning to slow, however; her husband's attentions always soothed her nerves.

Tom spoke with conviction. He trusted no one with his children - and his youngest son especially - more than his own father. Warren had had a bad neglectful childhood and had been forced away from his own children when they were mere infants. Tom couldn't blame his father for being so fiercely protective of his grandchildren.

"Da _is_ a Godsend. I trust him more with the young 'uns than I do my own eyes. Still ..." Irene knotted her stubby fingers in Tom's long impressive mane of sleek black hair. He laughed softly and untangled his mate's hands gently. It seemed he was always untangling something these days - himself from a tree, Rennie's nervous hands in his hair, his wayward offspring. It was almost ironic. As a boy, his twin sister had always been there to keep him out of trouble; now Tom was usually the one saving people - and himself.

When he reflected on his boyhood days on his grandfather's estate, he would admit they were much less complicated, but he never missed them. His grandfather was never cruel, but he denied Tom what sustained his very soul - the freedom of the skies.

His ears detected the rustle of wings. Griff flew as silently as an owl. Perri and Warren were not loud fliers, but Tom's super-sense of hearing could always pick up on the faintest of sounds within the loudest whirl of noises. The crash and sucking noises of the sea, the howling wind filled his senses ... still he could pick up and hone in on the soft swishing sounds of his children and father winging their way home. He could also hear their heartbeats, the very blood rushing thru their veins. Perri's was unusually elevated - and not with fear. Something big had happened to her in particular. Something big had happened and, Tom's razor-sharp instincts told him, Perri had been the source of it.

Tom lifted himself up off the cave floor where he had been comforting his mate. Warren and the kids were still about a mile away, but Tom's speed took him to them in under a second. Perri's face seemed to be glowing in the blue twilight and not just from the pinkish aura hovering around his daughter. This was surprising, but Tom was amazed more by her elated expression. There was a light shining from within his baby girl that seemed so familiar; it shone within her father as well. It was the memories that lingered in Tom's mind that were not his own, but his mother's. They seemed to suddenly manifest in this young girl before him.

She was now more like her grandmother, his own mom, than ever before.

Tom faced his eldest child squarely, scowling ferociously. The radiance literally glowing around her dimmed a bit when she saw her Da's expression. Perri was scolded on the daily by Irene; Tom was definitely the more easygoing of the two parents. Peregrine hadn't expected facing an angry father upon arrival at the aerie.

"Perri, what the hell?!" he demanded. "You caused a literal earthquake!"

"D-Da, I'm sorry ..." she stammered.

"Blew me into a tree! Upended hundreds of innocent sheep!" Tom continued angrily.

"Don't go so hard on her, son -" Warren said.

"Dad, please," Tom replied, holding up his hand to his father.

He turned to address his daughter sternly. "Sent your mother into hysterics and probably caused some massive tidal waves!"

"Da ..." Perry pleaded, her dark eyes huge.

"And," Tom added fiercely. "Your telekinetic powers have finally manifested ..." His handsome features suddenly broke into a huge smile.

Perri grinned, relieved and shy for perhaps the first time in her life. She looked almost bashful in the face of her father's unabashed pride. Father and daughter circled one another joyfully in mid-air before Perri flung herself into his strong and loving arms. Tom glanced over her head at his dad calmly hovering with the boys who were looking on wide-eyed at the reunion. Sparrow was riding his grandpa's shoulders and looked frankly disappointed his sister hadn't gotten a telling-off.

Warren was smiling at the scene. Of course, even his happiest expressions seemed tainted by grief - just as they were saturated by love and pride for his son and family.

Tom returned his smile and peered into Perri's face. "Let's get home to the aerie," he told everyone. "Rennie is frantic."

Actually, that was not true. Irene was almost weak with relief to see her family well and uninjured. Nevertheless, in her way, she had to touch each of her children to make sure they were safe. Warren smilingly endured her inspection as well, though the X-Man had been in far tighter situations than a surprise telekinetic storm (though he had been thru several of those too).

Irene kissed each of her "chicks" and gave Perri two. "Argh, my beautiful lass, your 'kinetic powers at last! Such calls for a celebration," Rennie gushed, holding Perri's face in her hands. "Though I'm a'feared what this new revelation will do to yer poor ol' muther. I'm gettin' enough greys every day, heaven knows."

"Yet you're more beautiful than ever before," Tom purred, rubbing his nose against hers.

"Eww, parents in love!" Perri said, sticking out her tongue.

"Into the nest with ye, wee divils, the lot of ye," Irene replied, giving her eldest child a spank on the rear and herding the boys after her to the aerie's "nest."

Perri and Griff tumbled into the children's nest at the back of the cave. It was plush with pillows and throws, a comfortable respite from the fierce sea winds and open sky beyond the aerie.

The family settled down in the snug space for nightly grooming and socializing. Tom (who was usually the more lenient parent) critically inspected each of his offspring's wings, making sure each one combed and cleaned every one of their flight feathers each night. The children helped their siblings and Irene did the same for Tom. Though she hadn't any wings nor feathers, Tom combed her hair as fastidiously as an owl would his mate's plumage.

Tom maintained the nightly ritual kept the children's wings healthy and quiet fliers. More importantly, it was an awesome bonding experience. Children and parents chatted about the day's adventures, disputes were settled and family bonds were reinforced. Of course, talk of Perri's powers dominated the conversation. The girl seemed to have overcome her initial shyness surrounding the incident; she was her usual confident self again.

Even Griff, who could be rather competitive with his sister, conceded praise. "She _was_ pretty cool," he admitted.

Only little Sparrow was silent, quietly preening his tawny feathers. Tom sensed his youngest boy's resentment, but refrained from commenting.

" _Pretty_ cool?" Perri replied. "Of course I was cool. I am the coolest - like 20 percent cooler than you."

"Not as cool as Da," Griffin argued.

"Have _you_ ever made a telekinetic storm, Da?" Perri challenged.

Tom laughed. "Well, yeah, on a few occasions ... Nothing like what you did, though."

Peregrine picked shyly at her wingtip. Tom thought he could get used to this new, slightly thoughtful, demure version of his daughter. "D-Did Grandma ever do anything like that?" she asked softly.

Tom chuckled. "Yes, and way more too," he replied with a wink and a knowing grin.

"Oooo, story!" Griff exclaimed, shaking his sister's shoulder.

"Ugh, geek! Leggo of me!" Perri snapped, toppling her odd, fluffy sibling over with a well-aimed wing-tip.

"Stop scrapping or it'll be bed now for the two of ye," Irene warned. Perri and Griff sat up straight; it would be mortifying to be sent to bed before little Sparrow, but the two eldest children shot each other glances that said "this-isn't-over."

"Oh, project, Daddy, pull-leez!" Perri begged. "Show us Grandma's memories."

Tom smiled gently. He closed his eyes and a faint pink glow, much like the one that hovered around Perri during her exploits that afternoon, encircled his face. When he opened his eyes, they burned bright pink. Then a pinkish-colored image hovered in the air before the children.

"It's Gran'pa!" Perrie squealed. "Lookit how young he is!"

"Peregrine!" Irene hissed.

"Well, he _is_ younger, Mum. After all, of course he would be. These are Grandma's memories."

Perri was right. Elizabeth had passed on all her memories to her son and daughter. Tom, with his telepathy, could project them as a sort of holographic image for her grandchildren to see. He knew it was the closest they would ever come to knowing the strong, beautiful woman Betsy Braddock Worthington was and, for that reason, he cherished this gift.

At this point, Warren left the aerie. He adored his son and daughter-in-law and indulged his grandchildren, but he rarely engaged in the nightly bonding ritual. He always hovered nearby, however, unless his wife's memories were recalled. Then he silently excused himself.

Tom noticed his absence, but said nothing. He also remained silent when his youngest son slipped out of the cave after Warren. Perri and Griff were oblivious to this; they began quarreling.

"Why is he dressed up like that?" Griff demanded in a condescending way.

"He's getting married, dummy," Perri responded, rolling her eyes at her younger brother.

"What is 'married'?" Griff asked.

"It's like pair bonding, same as raptors do. Same as Mum and Da," Perri explained impatiently. "Argh, you should _know_ all this, Griff. Mum and Da have explained it all to you. Weren't you listening?"

Griff just smiled; of course he was listening. No sound escaped his keen ears, but that didn't mean he didn't like hearing pleasant things again.

"Let's have another one, Da. This one is too soppy," Perri ordered. Perri was 14. Tom wasn't much older than her when he chose his pair bond. Peregrine seemed to have no interest in finding a mate, however. It worried her father, but seemed to oddly relieve her mother. Irene certainly didn't seem concerned that her only daughter had no interesting in mating. This confused Tom no end. Didn't his beautiful mate want their daughter to find a mate of her own and have her own "chicks" someday?

Tom chuckled and the image changed to too chubby babies, each about two months old. Each had dark hair, dark eyes and round cherubic cheeks. One, however, had tiny little nubbin wings like a fledgling owl.

"Babies! There's Da! And Aunt Becky!" Griff cried in delight.

Like many raptor males, he adored babies. He had his own dollies he was constantly nursing and fussing over like they were his own children. Bizarrely, this habit seemed to distress Irene in the same way Perri's aversion to pair bonding relieved her. In Tom's opinion, his son playing at parenting was excellent practice for when Griff became a Da.

"Such a handsome baby your Da was," Irene cooed, nestling her head against Tom's shoulder. "I know why my own babes are so lovely."

"Yet still not as lovely as their Mum," Tom replied with a gooey smile, giving his mate sweet Eskimo kisses in return. It was true - three kids and 15 years of marriage later, Rennie seemed as stunning to him as the day she first attracted her mate with her haunting, beautiful call.

"Uck!" said Perri in disgust. "Can we watch Grandma doing something awesome?"

Tom changed the image to one of two arms vigorously shaking some sort of canister.

"DA!" Perri and Griff shouted in indignation.

"What? Not everyone can make the perfect margarita?" Tom said.

"What is a margarita?" Griff asked.

"Oh, bloody 'ell, can we just watch Grandma doing something badass?" Perri demanded.

"Peregrine Worthington, where in the bloody 'ell did you learn that language?" Irene said angrily.

Everyone but Irene burst out laughing.

Tom put his arm around her and the image changed. A car was hurtling towards them; a glowing pink sword almost as long as Perri slashed the vehicle clean in two.

"Yes!" Perri shouted. "Oh, Da, do you think I could manifest a giant telekinetic sword someday?"

"A giant 'kinetic falcon isn't enough for ye, missy?" Irene asked, her green eyes wide.

Tom laughed. "It isn't impossible though. My sister eventually learned to manifest Mom's sword. Perhaps someday you will as well, Perri."

" _Perhaps_?" Perri said, looking crestfallen.

"No promises I can't keep, hon," Tom replied, nuzzling his daughter lovingly.

"Bed now, m'darlings," Irene said. Perri and Griff groaned.

"B-But Sparrow -" Perri sputtered.

"Is havin' Gran'pa time," Rennie stated patiently. "'Sides ye did more 'en yer brother this day, lass."

"Well, that's true," Perri sniggered at Griff in an undertone so Rennie couldn't hear.

Griff snickered in reply. "But when is it not?" he whispered

The siblings snuggled under the luxurious spread of blankets and throws, cuddling down in the soft nest. Irene opened her mouth and started to sing. The thing about Siryn's song was it sounded different to everyone; it made the listener's deepest desires seem to come true. As Perri closed her eyes, she saw herself soaring thru the skies, armed with an enormous pink sword, slashing thru every obstacle in her way.

Irene's song caused Griff to dream of snuggling a nestful of fluffy owlets. Her song didn't seem to have any affect her husband, however; it was a beautiful sound to Tom's ears, but his sweetest dreams had already come true.

"Sleep with angels, my darlings," Irene whispered to her babes when they were soaring not thru the air, but thru the land of dreams.

 **###**

Warren wasn't much of a night-flier. That was Tom's forte. Warren loved basking his white wings in the warmth of the sun, but the dusk was the perfect opportunity for reflection. It was during this time, the day's death, that he wanted to be alone.

He left the aerie before Siryn's song began; Warren couldn't bear that sound. He couldn't bear the images her powers conjured in his mind - his deepest desires.

Irene was a kind daughter to him; she made sure he was out of earshot before her song began.

It laced Warren with guilt. Shouldn't he be thankful for what he had now, not what he had lost in the past? But the sight that Siryn's song conjured up in his mind, of Betsy's beautiful face - and knowing he would never touch it again - filled him with indescribable pain.

He perched high on a sea-cliff; the night air was crisp and clear, but not chilly, perfect for flying. Warren knew his son would be going out soon and ask his father to join him. It was a time Warren looked forward each day, a time he once thought impossible, when he could fly wingtip-to-wingtip with his son and glory in the freedom of the skies as they were born to do.

Warren heard a rustle of wings and glanced around. It wasn't Tom; Tom's feathers never made a sound.

Sparrow.

Warren smiled at the boy edging his way gingerly along the cliff-face towards his grandpa. The children knew to give their grandfather space during this time; Sparrow's company was all Warren would tolerate.

The small boy reached Warren and snuggled deep into his grandpa's plush wing-feathers. They sat in silence for some time, watching the black waves below capped with bright-white foam.

Poor boy resented his sister. Blamed himself for her teasing and his shortcomings. He was aware of his parents' love but suspected their shame.

How much Sparrow was like Warren when he was young - sensing his true powers, but feeling too trapped, too ashamed, too proud to revel in something that none of his relative had or understood, let alone respected.

No wonder Sparrow was closer to his grandfather than to anyone else.

"Don't say that," Sparrow suddenly muttered.

"Don't say what?" Warren asked, mystified. "I-I didn't say anything."

"Wha?" Sparrow said, his head snapping up to stare wide-eyed at his grandfather. "B-But I _heard_ you ..."

"Y-You heard ..." Warren trailed off, his mind racing from thought to thought.

"Ow! Gran'pa, don't talk so fast," Sparrow said, massaging his temples. "I-It hurts my head."

"Sparrowhawk!" Warren said. He grasped his grandson's shoulders and gazed into his wide blue eyes. "Look at me! Tell me what I'm thinking right now."

The boy looked scared. "B-But I can't -"

"Try," Warren said firmly, but gently.

"Ummm ..." Sparrow murmured as his eyes searched Warren's frantically. Then Warren saw his grandson's gaze clear of confusion like the sky on a sunny day. His huge eyes widened bigger still. "Oh my God, y-you're thinking about a-a woman ..." Sparrow looked like he might scream from excitement. Warren felt him tremble. "She's beautiful." A grin lit up Sparrow's face like a sunrise. "S-She looks like Perri ..."

Sparrow whispered words in such glee he could have shouted them. "Gran'pa, that's Grandma, isn't it?"

Warren nodded, grinning. He knew Sparrow was seeing his grandmother for the first time. Tom's telepathic projections could show others Betsy's memories from her perspective, but the children had never seen her face before ... until now.

"Looks like we found the telepath in the family," Warren said with a smile.

"O-Oh! Gran'pa! S-She looks like Perri, but ..." Sparrow sputtered. Warren laughed. He couldn't tell which his grandson was more excited about - his newfound telepathic abilities or the fact he was seeing Betsy for the first time.

"Her hair and eyes are a shade lighter, I know," Warren said.

"She's shorter than I imagined."

"Don't let that fool you. She could kick major ass."

Sparrow giggled. He'd been told his entire life Perri was a picture of his grandma, but now, searching his grandpa's thoughts, he saw Griff's round face in her image and his own long fingers on her hands. Furthermore, he could sense his grandfather's feelings surrounding this woman known as Psylocke, feelings of fierce devotion and gentle affection. And sadness too, like an old injury that never heals completely. Except this injury was to Warren's mind, not his body.

Sparrow gently took his grandfather's hand and found, much to his amazement, he could _send_ his own thoughts of comfort and sympathy to the man. Warren smiled proudly at his grandson.

"Betsy could never fly," he murmured.

"Just like me," Sparrow replied.

"Listen to me, Sparrowhawk," Warren said softly. "Maybe someday you'll fly with your wings; maybe you won't. That's OK. You'll find your own way to fly. You'll fly thru people's thoughts and dreams, just like your grandmother did. You'll understand their deepest fears and desires, their most secret emotions. Hell, I don't even think the land itself could keep secrets from you."

Warren glanced at his grandson, then pointed significantly with his chin down at the crashing waves of the sea where Sparrow had indeed seen _writing_... the land trying to tell him something.

Sparrow was shocked. His grandpa knew, but then he shouldn't have been surprised.

Sparrow could tell now that Warren always had.


	3. Twinning

**All right, peeps, it's time for some more descendants of Cyclops who originally come from different timelines – which I have put in the same timeline because … multiple timelines give me headaches!**

 **This time it's Jonathan Reed Richards and Dream Jeanie Richards – both children of Franklin Richards and Rachel Summers (Cyclops' daughter). Since they are about the same age, but from different timelines, I decided by putting them in the same timeline, they would be twins.**

 **By the way, Rachel Summers is my favorite character in X-Men, after Storm and Jean Grey.**

 **To anayeli12 - yes, Meg and Ruby will definitely find out (more than a little and probably more than they want to know) about their parents' past.**

 **To Ogygian Spring - thank you SO much for the kind words and encouragement! You rock!**

 **I hope ya'll enjoy this chapter! Please read and comment; I'd love to hear what you have to say about this story!**

 **All characters belong to Marvel.**

 **Cheers,**

 **Maria**

 ** _Chapter III: Twinning_**

The mountain lion was an old one – a tom – with the russet-brown pelt, blue eyes and facial stripes of its species. Its face was scarred from many a fight and there was nick in its ear; a souvenir from its scrap with Laura some years ago. Laura narrowed her dark-blue, almost black, eyes at the puma and felt her lips instinctively curl; she took these kinds of things personally.

Hidden among the scraggly vegetation amidst the sand-colored rocky terrain, she was downwind and so still she could have been a boulder herself. She barely blinked or breathed. Still, the big cat was wary, lifting his raggedy head to sniff for a scent that wasn't there. He was an old cat and knew many tricks, but he wouldn't leave this gulch alive, Laura swore silently.

She wanted to leap down on the puma and cut its throat, but she knew this hunt belonged to her son, Jonathan, and her daughter, Jeanie. Laura was just here to monitor their progress – in case there was any trouble.

God knew chaos followed the twins like a raven on a dying animal.

Laura knew her children were hidden amongst the boulders of the canyon she was crouched within, but Laura – who could smell a scent almost a mile away – couldn't detect the twins. Jonathan and Jeanie couldn't just mask their presence the way Laura could – the twins could phase completely out of this reality while still watching their target in this dimension. A trait the two had inherited from their father.

Yet still the panther sensed a trap. As his hesitant steps took him backwards, away from the sheer rock face even a lion couldn't scale, Jonathan Summers-Richards leapt down to block the animal's escape. He was a handsome 16-year-old boy, tall and a bit on the slim side, but lithe and fit from Laura's rigorous training. His long coppery-colored hair pulled back in a ponytail. One eye was covered in a patch to contain the concussive ocular beam most of Cyclops' descendants carried. Jonathan carried a spear whose blade was sharper than the sharpest weapon; its blade was made of pure telekinetic energy and Jonathan could throw it as far as his telekinesis would allow – which was pretty damn far and deadly accurate. The boy had inherited all of his grandfather Cyclops' precision and aim.

 _Yes! Go for the kill_! Laura hissed silently at her son from her hidden perch.

But he didn't. Instead, two enormous cat-like animals with fangs longer than a fox appeared out of thin air to flank the boy. Laura rolled her eyes. Of course, Jonathan couldn't resist showing off, especially if his sister was there to watch. He adored Jeanie and would do anything if he thought it would draw her attention.

Jonathan's powers of telepathic projection had summoned the beasts. It was a bit like a film projector, except these cat beasts could do very real damage … namely to Jonathan's prey. The puma crouched, its fur fluffed out and eyes wide in terror; its black lips curled away from its fangs in a snarl and a hiss. Jonathan's cat brutes began harassing and tormenting the puma as the boy looked on, making no move to end the poor animal's suffering.

Laura hated this puma in particular, but she couldn't watch it suffer a moment longer. She sprang down from her lookout. Jonathan blinked one eye at his mother in surprise; he obviously hadn't expected her to get involved. In his startled moment, his cat minions wavered and then vanished as if made of mist.

The puma, sensing an opportunity to escape, bolted between mother and son towards the gulch mouth and freedom.

"Dammit, boy!" Laura hissed, making no effort to control her voice or emotions now. Even Jonathan recoiled a bit; Laura's temper was infamous.

Laura wasn't so much pissed at the panther's escape, though that riled her too, as she was at where the puma was headed – straight towards Jonathan's twin sister, Jeanie.

Laura loved her beautiful daughter and was highly protective of the 16-year-old girl, but Laura was the first to admit Jeanie was a hopeless hunter. Jeanie appeared directly in the lion's path. She was tall like her brother; she was already taller than Laura – another Summers' gene, but her blue eyes were wide and clear. Jeanie hadn't inherited her grandfather's concussive eye beams. Her hair was long and wavy – the color of a winter sunset – and less curly than her biological mother's and a shade darker than Rachel's too.

"No, dammit, no, Jeanie!" Laura snarled. Four claws instinctively popped out of her knuckles, the blood drying and skin healing around the wounds almost instantaneously. "Don't try to talk to the bastard!"

Jeanie, however, was holding out a tentative hand to the cat. Laura knew the young telepath was trying to tap into the terrified puma's thoughts and soothe the frantic animal. Jeanie wasn't just a psychic – she was an empath as well. Right now, the girl was feeling the lion's almost blinding fear as if she was experiencing it herself. And Jeanie would do just about anything to stop someone – animal or otherwise – suffering.

Even try to pet a half-crazed puma. She had tried it when she was five … to the same puma. Then, she had almost lost her life.

Now, the animal, rigid with fear, seemed to relax somewhat as Jeanie's trembling hand reached out slowly to stroke its muzzle. Its blue eyes searched hers, more fascinated than fearful.

Then Jonathan's telekinetic spear planted itself deep in the animal's flank. The panther shivered, a tremor running down the length of its russet pelt, and collapsed, blood trickling from its mouth.

Jeanie's eyes widened in unspeakable horror. Laura felt like slapping Jonathan or running him thru with her claws if she knew he would heal within moments as she would from such a wound. Didn't he know his twin sister would feel the puma's emotions as it died?

Apparently not … or perhaps he had taken a shot when he saw a razor-thin opportunity, when the puma was distracted by the strange girl trying to communicate with him. Just as Laura had taught her son; just as Jonathan was predisposed to do, perhaps, as Cyclops' grandson. It was something the leader of the X-Men would have done, Laura thought.

Jonathan couldn't ignore his instincts any more than Jeanie could hers. And no one knew more about balancing logic against blind, unthinking instinct than Laura – the hero known as X23, the daughter of Wolverine, perhaps the most famous X-Man of all.

Jeanie was on her knees now, caressing the dying cat. The emotion that contorted her face was one of pure physical pain brought on by her sensing the emotions of the now-dead puma. Her beautiful blue eyes filled with tears which made wet splotches in the dust. Then she leapt to her feet, looking as ferocious as Laura, her surrogate mother, as she stared down Jonathan. Jonathan, who barely acknowledged anyone outside his immediate family, took a step back. Jeanie always had his attention – even if she had to force it.

Jeanie could forgive and even try to save the animal that almost killed her, but she was also formidable enough to give her brother a telepathic trouncing. She didn't speak a word, but she didn't have to. Laura's ears, which could hear a wolf sneeze on the other side of the forest, couldn't hear the twins' argument, but they were definitely having one.

Jeanie, being the girl, had been the shorter twin since the siblings hit puberty, but now she seemed to loom over Jonathan fiercely. Jonathan looked like a scolded wolf, made small by his submissive posturing as if begging his sister's forgiveness and perhaps, Laura thought, meekly reminding her he had saved her life … again. He'd done it first when the twins were five and Jeanie had tried to telepathically "talk" to mountain lions.

Then Jonathan took on an aggressive posture, going toe-to-toe with Jeanie telepathically. Jeanie could have fought him, Laura imagined, and might have even won, but the girl whirled around in a flash of red hair and pelted out of the canyon, shaking with silent sobs.

"Well, that certainly went well …" Laura growled sarcastically before giving her son a "wait-until-we-get-home" look.

Jonathan glanced meekly at his mother before flashing her a smile.

As a baby, Jeanie had smiled almost as soon as she was out of the womb, much earlier than most infants. Baby Jonathan had not. As an infant, he neither smiled nor laughed. It worried Laura to distraction almost, tormented by the possibility her precious boy might be less-than-perfect. When he was about one, Jonathan finally smiled, but he only ever rarely did it. And, at 16, the boy had still yet to speak a single word. Of course, he communicated brilliantly with his biological mother, Rachel, and his sister via telepathy. And he scraped by communication-wise with Laura by using hand signals, gestures and posturing. Furthermore, Laura's hyper-senses could usually detect her son's moods.

His smile, however, was like the sun coming out from the clouds and he knew it could charm the ferocious Laura into forgiving him for anything. The charm he had inherited from his maternal grandmother, Jean Grey-Summers, Laura concluded. Jean, for whom Jeanie was named, could even tame the wild heart of Wolverine.

"Head for home," Laura ordered her son. "I'll have to track down your sister. And, no, this discussion is _not_ over."

As Jonathan departed for their cabin, he flashed his surrogate mom another dazzling smile. Laura tried to scowl sternly at the boy, but she lost the battle of wills and smirked. Laura hadn't lost any of her edge since becoming a mother – if anything, she had gotten a sharper one. Like Wolverine, she too had a restless feral heart, but she knew Jonathan and Jeanie Richards held it in the palm of their hands.

 **###**

Jeanie and Jonathan belonged to only a handful of creatures Laura knew of who could elude her sense of smell. Almost the only way to dupe X23's nose was to fall off the face of the earth, which is sort of what the twins did when they didn't want their surrogate mother to tail them. Jeanie had been doing it more often now. It was not lost on even Laura, who could frankly be a bit obtuse when it came to feelings, that it was odd that it was she and Jeanie – not she and Jonathan – who seemed to always butt heads. Jeanie was so sweet-natured … but then that was the main reason daughter and mother disagreed so often.

"But the little bird will have to fly back to its nest …" Laura muttered to herself as she trudged thru the forest. Laura could make herself almost invisible when she was hunting; she became one big sponge of senses while making herself become an invisible part of the woods. When she was in a temper, however, she didn't care who knew it.

The animals knew it. Birds ceased singing and squirrels, usually chattering in the highest branches, were mute. Bears and wolves sensed her presence and headed as quickly as possible for the mountains. The Lady Wolverine (as some people called her, but never to her face) was in a bad mood.

Indeed, she eventually picked up the "little bird's" scent – coming from the worst possible source.

Whenever Jeanie went on a hunt with Laura and Jonathan, the outing always seemed to end this way, with Jeanie sulking in the poor dead animal's lair. No matter what it was that became the family's prey, Jeanie could feel sorry for it, even the bad-tempered moose, who no one liked (except to eat, of course) but Jeanie.

Laura hiked far into the mountains where she smelled her girl's scent coming from a cave, very cunningly hidden amongst the brush, so cunningly even Laura might have overlooked it if not for her daughter's scent pouring out of it. Puma were exceedingly clever hunters as well. They notoriously and fastidiously masked their own odor. Even Laura couldn't usually find their lairs unless she knew exactly where to look.

The girl had been crying. Her long wavy red hair trailed the cave floor and almost out the cave mouth; Jeanie's hair had always grew at an alarming rate. It could take an entire day to wash, comb and braid it to keep it out of the way. This was Rachel's job or Meg Summers' when the girls got together. Grooming Jeanie made Laura lose every bit of patience. Laura had chopped off Jeanie's hair with her own claws more times than she cared to count. The girl could be shaved bald one day and wake up the next morning with a full head of hair; Jonathan had tried it once when the twins were seven.

When Jeanie ran away in a temper, she always took her hair down – to annoy Laura, it seemed.

Rachel was usually the one to run down Jeanie, but the girl's biological mom was on one of her weird walkabouts, Laura thought rolling her eyes.

Laura cleared her throat pointedly. Jeanie turned to glare at her, streaks running down the girl's freckled cheeks. Not many people could fix X23 with that look and live.

The young telepath could have sensed almost anyone, or anything, else approaching the cave, but Laura was immune to psychic trackers – all of Wolverine's descendants were. However, Jeanie also couldn't project her thoughts and feelings directly into Laura's mind the way she would have done to Rachel or Jonathan or her best friend, Megan Summers. Jeanie was forced to verbally communicate with Laura, something neither of them was very skilled at.

Jeanie scowled a bit. Laura knew the girl was projecting images telepathically and they were just bouncing off her mother's uncomprehending brain.

"Little bird, you know that trick doesn't work on me," Laura said, deadpan. That didn't stop Jeanie from angrily lashing out at her mom psychically. It was a Richards' version of a temper tantrum. But like any stoic parent, it didn't faze Laura.

"Listen, you can crawl away to another dimension and sulk there, but the moment you set foot in this reality, girlie, I _will_ find you, no matter where you try to hide," Laura explained, grappling with her impatience. "So why don't we get this unpleasant conversation out of the way, hmm?"

Jeanie's blue eyes glared at her mother for several more moments, before the girl spoke. Jeanie so rarely used her voice Laura seemed to forget how melodic it was. "I was getting thru to him. He was _so_ afraid. He only knew how to run or how to fight," Jeanie said, sniffling. "He couldn't put his fear into words and talk to us, try to convince us not to hurt him," Jeanie fixed her sapphire gaze on Laura. "He was wild … same as you, Mama."

Laura pulled up, feeling the indignation and anger pulse thru her head like a wave. Her knuckles twitched as they itched to extract her claws and X23 struggled not to lose her temper. No one could push her buttons quite like Jeanie Summers-Richards. "Summers," that was the key word. Scott Summers and Wolverine were notorious enemies. Laura wondered if their bloodlines would ever find some semblance of harmony?

What Jeanie said was true, however, which just made Laura angrier. When Laura encountered an obstacle, she slashed thru it. Problem solved. Parenting took subtlety, however. And compromise. Neither of which Laura was any good at. The Lady Wolverine could defend her cubs and teach them to provide for themselves, but she had no idea how to negotiate with them.

Digging her nails in her palms hurt, but it seemed to prevent the alternative; it kept Laura's claws from popping out. "That very cat tried to kill you when you were a baby," Laura replied in her no-nonsense tone. "I do not care how it felt. I do not care if it couldn't help itself from doing the things it did. And the thing it would have done was _kill you_. And out here …"

"'You kill or be killed.' I know," Jeanie said, mimicking her Mama. "I hate it."

"I do not care how you feel about it either," Laura growled, made angrier by her daughter's mocking tone. "Learning how to hunt – how to fight – is essential."

"Is it?!" Jeanie snapped, turning on her mother so quickly, her long hair whirled around like a thick rope. "Megan isn't forced to _kill_ innocent animals. Her parents don't make her! She is a telepath, like me, but she isn't forced to _feel_ what her quarry feels when it dies!"

"She has that luxury! And _those_ parents!" Laura snarled, finally losing her temper. She brandished her claws as she stared down the girl. "You do not!"

"I could!" Jeanie cried, jumping to her feet and towering over her mother. "Let me go to the Jean Grey School with Meg. Let me live with Grandpa Scott?" she begged.

"That is impossible!" Laura roared. A few doves, nervously pecking at the rocks nearby, fluttered away in a clatter of wings, better to forage somewhere safer.

"Are all things you're afraid of so impossible, Mama?" Jeanie sneered.

Laura bellowed in rage, but Jeanie had vanished into thin air, her big blue eyes the last to disappear, as she stepped out of this dimension and into another where Laura couldn't follow.

 **###**

Rachel Grey-Summers picked her way down from the mountainside. Some bighorn sheep watched her warily from an opposing cliff-face, chewing cud as the setting sun turned the sandy-colored stone orange. The rut had just finished. The telepathic Rachel, better known as Phoenix, co-leader of the X-Men, easily picked up on the animals' mental processes – a steady stream of thought that read "eat, chew, breed, repeat."

There were certainly times when Rachel wished her own existence was so simple. She loved her life, parts of it made her exceedingly happy … but to say it was complicated was perhaps the greatest understatement she could think of.

 _Take my family_ … she mused silently. _Please_. She grinned and ran a hand thru her unruly red hair when she thought how Laura would react to that stupid joke.

Franklin Richards, her lifelong friend and her children's father, was an adventurer, an explorer. His extreme powers allowed Franklin to pass thru alternate realities, seeking out resources, allies and knowledge from alternate dimensions. Her children had inherited this ability; they could pass between this dimension – the one they were born into – and those their father inhabited.

Rachel could not. Rachel did not miss Franklin as a lover every second of every day as she thought she might when they became a couple almost two decades ago. As her best, oldest and closest friend, she ached for him every moment of her existence.

Laura was an entirely different animal – literally. The woman functioned much as a wild animal would with her flight or (usually) fight temperament. Short on temper and shorter on a sense of humor, the fearsome daughter of Wolverine was not exactly easy to live with, but she and Rachel had raised her twins in tandem since Jeanie and Jonathan were toddlers. Laura herself had raised and protected the twins literally since they were born.

The twins themselves were both highly talented and oddly deficient in different areas. Jonathan with his telekinetic weaponry, lightning-fast reflexes and knack for hiding in adjacent dimensions had the makings of a brilliant warrior. Jeanie had these assets as well; her problem was her extreme empathy made her feel every pain her opponent endured. Jonathan was the opposite – indifferent and aloof to those he did not know and to many he did. The boy had yet to utter a word to even his own immediate family.

Then there was Rachel's mother which was perhaps the strangest part of Rachel's very strange life. Jean Grey-Summers, for all intents and purposes, had died when Rachel was only a few weeks old …

Only she had not.

She still existed in Rachel's subconscious mind and, with focus and concentration, Rachel could contact and communicate with her mother. She had been able to do this since she was a small child. Rachel was now in her mid-thirties, but still no one could explain exactly how she did it.

Rachel had just completed one of these very unorthodox conversations with her mom. They always left her pensive, agitated and apprehensive as well as relieved, grateful and content at the closeness she felt with Jean. It was an odd mix-bag of emotions - sharing mundane life events with her mom as any daughter would (keeping tabs on the twins, asking/giving parental advice) while Jean portioned out ominous omens and dark portents to her child. Rachel had barely known her mother in this life, but apparently had a very close bond with her in the next one ...

... And inexplicably thru it could know even the future itself.

The only semblance of an explanation for this - said Rachel's Uncle Hank - was that when communicating with Jean, Rachel accessed a place known as the Astral Plane. It was a sort of a dreamlike telepathic "neutral ground" where hidden desires and fears of the mind were laid bare and past, present and future had no meaning.

But then again that was only a theory. What Rachel knew for a fact was how drained, lethargic and strangely happy it all made her feel.

It was sort of like eating a comfort food - it made Rachel feel wonderful and terrible all at the same time. This meeting Jean had issued especially bad news concerning the future, but still Rachel would hear the worst predictions for a glimpse of her mother's face.

In order to maintain this contact with Jean, however, Rachel had to leave behind all distractions - psychically or otherwise. This wilderness of boreal forests, where she, Laura and the twins made their second home, was the perfect sanctuary of solitude for Rachel. It was separated from civilization's very loud cornucopia of thoughts and emotions which was constantly striving to bombard a telepath's mind.

She had left the twins with Laura which usually resulted in some trouble. As Rachel hiked down from the mountains, it was like descending into a psychic shitstorm. Rachel could barely glimpse the family cabin from her rocky perch, but she keenly sensed her family's emotions: Jeanie's rebellious indignation and Jonathan's guilt and confusion over his sister's emotions.

Accessing the Astral Plane to communicate with her dead mother was one thing, raising teenagers was quite another.

Stifling a sigh, which she knew Laura would have heard even at this distance, Rachel made her way resolutely towards the clearing in the pine trees where her family lived.

She was barely within earshot when Laura leaped up from where she was camped out on the cabin stoop. Anger and frustration lined every angle of the woman's face; Laura had never been one to mask her feelings, which was just as well because Rachel could not detect them psychically. No telepath could.

"It's your fault, you know," Laura growled, her straight black hair falling in her face. "You raised her to be a _hippie_!" she spat out the word like an insult. "Filling her head with all this peace-and-love bullshit. You even named her 'Dream' for God's sake!"

"Actually, that was her father," Rachel commented mildly. There was no need asking who "her" was. Laura's mind was consumed a great deal by anger; it was her primary emotion. For Jeanie to be the person who angered her most was almost to be considered an accomplishment.

Laura made a frustrated gesture and gave Rachel an "I-rest-my-case" expression. Laura didn't think much of Franklin, but to be fair, Laura didn't think much of most people.

Rachel ran her hands thru her red curly hair, a habit she shared with her father. It expressed exasperation - something she was feeling a lot of these days.

"Are you still insisting she hunt?" Rachel asked Laura.

Laura only growled like an angry cat in reply. Rachel shared Jeanie's sentiment. She hated hunting. Jeanie had inherited her gifts - or perhaps curse - of empathy from her biological mother. Rachel's talents as an empath had certainly caused her to achieve great things ... and suffer some heartbreaking ones. She literally understood how her daughter was feeling and not just because Rachel could feel her emotions - Rachel experienced Jeanie's powers every moment of every day.

But then, though she couldn't sense Laura's emotions, Rachel understood why Laura did the things she did, especially as a parent. As a small child, Laura had had almost no affection or nurturing. Almost as soon as she could walk, she wasn't fed. Starvation forced the girl to hunt, putting her razor-sharp senses to the test.

Rachel got it. Laura loved the twins more than anyone else. But she expressed her love for them in her own way. Some parents hugged and kissed their young - X23 strove to make sure her children could survive in the wild. And a great portion of her stress, Rachel suspected, came from one of her children being abysmally bad at it.

As a natural diplomatic leader, Rachel had to view both sides of a conflict and weigh which prospective outcome could best benefit both parties. She did it almost every day as co-leader of the X-Men. But she was beginning to believe that leading a group super-powered genetically gifted superheroes was only training Rachel for the real challenge - parenting teens.

"Have you considered this life may not suit Jeanie?" she asked Laura tentatively, expecting another explosion of temper from the wild-woman.

" _Your_ daughter reminds me of that daily," Laura snapped, emphasizing "your." Jeanie was always Rachel's during these scenarios. "It isn't what she wants, Rachel. She must be prepared for what _might_ happen."

"Well, with her telekinesis and the skills you've taught her, I'd say she's capable," Rachel replied. When Laura's black eyebrows shot up, Rachel quickly explained. "She just doesn't enjoy it - who would if they felt like they were dying every time they went hunting?"

"I can sympathize," Laura replied, scowling. With her healing factor she had inherited from Wolverine, Laura had "died" several times only to be healed almost instantly of her mortal wounds and live again.

"If pushed, Jeanie could do it," Rachel insisted.

"She's strong like you," Laura grunted, albeit grudgingly.

Rachel smiled at her tone. Her and Laura were certainly not lovers, but there were times she wished to express affection towards this fierce woman who had done so much for her children. Rachel had all of Cyclops' height genes, so when she nuzzled Laura's shoulder affectionately, her chin rested perfectly in the shorter woman's clavicle.

Laura smiled in return; she couldn't help it. Jonathan wasn't the only one to inherit Jean Summers' charming ways. Rachel would need every ounce of charm for the argument she was headed towards.

"Jeanie isn't happy with this way of life. Jonathan thrives in it, but his sister ..." Rachel trailed off, remembering the happy summer last year Jeanie had lived at the Jean Grey School. Amongst her best friend and Rachel's half-sister, Meg, and her schoolmates, Jeanie flourished. She was a social butterfly with all her maternal grandmother's genial personality ... And every bit of her beauty.

"You're not going to suggest that School, are you?" Laura groaned. "It's all Jeanie pesters me about, day and night. You aren't going to ride me too?"

"Jeanie is happier there, Laura," Rachel said patiently. "She thrives in that environment. I really can't figure it out myself, but she does ..."

Rachel, much like her telepathic half-sister Meg, could be a bit reclusive due to the barrage of thought existing in crowded areas brought about. Jeanie, however ...

"She loves people. She feels their thoughts and joy. It sustains her. Jeanie doesn't run away from it; she revels in it - in feeling the emotions of people, relishing their happiness and stopping their suffering. A School with lots of peers her age who are loving and supportive and kind ..."

"With lots of _boys_ , you mean ...?" Laura growled her lowest most-dangerous growl.

Rachel's shoulders drooped. "Laura, _you_ have a beautiful 16-year-old daughter. What did you think would happen? Yes, boys will most likely _look_ at Jeanie -" Rachel rolled her eyes at Laura's expression. "But that's probably all they'll do. Remember, Jeanie will be living with Dad - if she goes!" she said quickly to Laura's glare. "You know he's as protective of Jeanie as he is Meg and Ruby. And I doubt he will allow any of those girls to date until they're 30. Maybe not even then."

"Jeanie needs an environment that nurtures her, not suppresses her powers. When I was a child I was taken out of a sustaining environment - that understood and encouraged my gifts - and forced to suppress them."

Rachel reflected on her adolescence with the familiar mixture of anger and sadness. Her Aunt Sara cared for her in the best way she knew how, but Rachel's incredibly powerful telepathy couldn't be suppressed as her aunt ordered her to do. Rachel had grown almost catatonic; if it hadn't been for Franklin, Rachel would have lost her life ...

"That _cannot_ happen to Jeanie," Rachel stated in her firm leader-voice, shaking herself out of her reverie with a shudder when she even considered her own child undergoing the pain she had endured.

Laura herself looked like she was in physical pain. Ever the empath, Rachel reached out to stroke her arm. "You have no idea how I'm feeling," Laura muttered sullenly. "You literally don't."

"Not exactly. But remember I'm the girl's mother too. I love her too - as much as you do. Though that _is_ hard to imagine," Rachel chuckled. She tilted Laura's chin up and gazed deep into her dark-blue eyes. "Laura, all little cubs have to leave their Mama's den at some point - even those of Lady Wolverine," she added with a mischievous grin.

Laura's eyes widened. No one had ever called her by that name in her presence. Rachel was probably the only one who could get away with it.

Rachel took the fearsome woman in her arms in a warm embrace. "A parent's job is to eventually become obsolete," she murmured sadly.

Laura, the ferocious Lady Wolverine, shut her eyes as a single tear ran down her cheek.

Jeanie shrieked from inside the cabin. It happened before either Laura or Rachel could sense her. That scared her Mama's more than her scream of extreme panic and fear.

"God, it's her brother!" Rachel gasped, near tears and teetering on the edge of panic. She had immediately sensed the cause of her daughter's fear.

Laura frantically sniffed the air for the threat of danger, but scented nothing but her daughter's terror pulsing thru her bloodstream.

"Rachel what is is?!" Laura demanded, horrified, as she pounded after Phoenix into the cabin which was dim after the dazzling sunset tones of the outdoors.

The interior was as spartan as one would expect of Lady Wolverine. A simple scoured table with a kerosene lamp decorating its center occupied the center of the kitchen in the four-room cabin. A couple frying pans decorated the kitchen walls as did pelts pegged to the living room walls and the majestic antlers of caribou and elk. Stacks of furs, from Laura and Jonathan's many hunts and traps were piled in the sitting room.

Beyond these were the twins' rooms. (Rachel, when she was here and not with the X-Men, bunked with Jeanie; Laura, ever the nocturnal predator, was rarely asleep at night.) The scream originated from Jonathan's room.

"He went looking for her in another dimension," Rachel said, clenching her teeth, trying to keep in a sob. "Oh, God ...!"

Jonathan's room was decorated with the pelts he was most proud of - including a stark-black male wolf he had stalked last winter. His pet Burmese python inhabited a spotless tank at the room's rear.

Jeanie was kneeling on the floor of her brother's room, sobbing, her long hair draping down on either side of her and spilling out on the floor like a pool of blood. Laura's eyes, which could see in the dark better than the day, made out the room's dim interior before Rachel's. Jeanie's form was solid, planted firmly in this dimension. A mere outline of her twin brother knelt opposite her.

"Mama!" Jeanie cried, tears blurring her beautiful blue eyes. She called both women "Mama." "H-He came looking for m-me," she gasped. "N-Now he can't come back. And I don't know why! M-Mama, Jonathan's fading away!"

It was true. Rachel and Laura watched, horrified, as the last traces of their son disappeared from this reality.

Would he ever return again?


	4. Dream, Dream, Dream

**Aaaand we're back with Meg and Ruby, the daughters of Cyclops and Emma Frost!**

 **To Ogygian Spring - thank you for the fav and the continuing encouragement and comments. Your work is superb and you are very kind.**

 **I also want to thank my pal Maricar; her own sweet Kingsley passed away not long ago.**

 **I hope you enjoy. Please read and comment. I want to know your thoughts on this story!**

 **Also, rated "T" for mild language and because it might get a bit "spicy." HeeHee. But nothing "R" rated.**

 **All characters belong to Marvel.**

 **God knows I do NOT own the Rolling Stones.**

 **Thanks & Cheers, Maria**

 _ **Chapter IV: Dream, Dream, Dream**_

Emma Frost removed her sparkling earrings and placed them in the sterling silver tray on her vanity. She used to coat herself in diamonds, but now she only wore them out on special occasions - Ruby's birthday party, for example. Besides, why should she wear gems when her own skin could literally turn to diamond?

"And they're out ..." she chuckled at her husband's reflection as she telepathically monitored her daughters' minds which were now wrapped in slumber.

"I'm surprised it didn't take longer - especially for Ruby," Scott Summers replied with a smirk. Even with his greying hairs, the longtime leader of the X-Men was lean and fit with almost boyish good looks. With his visor constantly covering his eyes, those who didn't know him wouldn't guess he had a daughter in her thirties with teenagers of her own.

Emma ran her brush thru her already flawlessly straight white-blond hair. She smiled in that special way she always did when she considered her daughters. Meg's straight blond hair mirrored her mother's; Ruby's wild curls refused to be tamed by brush, comb, conditioner or any other product or procedure thrown its way. And speaking of hair ... upon close inspection Emma could see the white ones her precocious offspring put on their poor mother's head. Not for the first time, Emma thanked the gods for her light tresses. All the better to hide those annoying white strands, my dear, she mused with that curious mixture of exasperation and affection only her children could bring out in the White Queen.

"Megan does wonders for calming her sister," Emma remarked. "...And Ruby does the same for her," she added thoughtfully.

She wondered if the sisters would ever realize how much each benefited from the other. Emma secretly hoped they wouldn't have to. Emma had had a difficult childhood; if she had her druthers, her daughters would remain blissfully ignorant of just how good they had it.

"But nothing for calming you?" Scott teased her, a playful smile on his lips as he surveyed his beautiful wife from his perch on their large low white bed which was within reach of her vanity.

Emma laughed. "You're the one with grey hairs, Mister Summers," she countered.

"No, we both do; I'm the only one who shows it," he replied. "In fact," he purred, putting his strong arms around her torso. "I'd be willing to bet you actually have more."

Emma playfully slapped his arm away from her waist. No one could get to her quite like Scott ... except of course Ruby. It wasn't hard to see where she got it from.

When Emma looked back on her life, she could have laughed at the vain capricious woman she once was. She was still somewhat vain, however. She would be the first to admit that. No, she thought, rolling her eyes. Her husband would. But only ever to her and only to tease her.

He knew how much her white hairs and inevitable aging troubled her - the ever-resplendent White Queen. But it was also only one reason she loved the X-Man known as Cyclops; Emma had teased him more than once that Scott was indeed telepathic, but the truth was he had known so many people and had so many strange experiences - many of them concerning powerful psychics - that he could assume (most often correctly) what others were thinking and what they would do. It was also one reason he was such a brilliant leader.

For Emma, who's entire existence seemed to concern knowing the thoughts of others, it was comforting to know someone knew _her_ so intimately.

Scott, of course, seemed to know what was on her mind as she snuggled up to her husband under the warm covers. "So how does it feel to have _two_ 14-year-old daughters?" he asked.

"Why don't you tell me?" she said wryly.

"Taxing, exhausting, terrifying," he responded with a smile.

"They are good girls, just ..." Emma picked up the framed photo she always kept at her bedside. Her girls were teenagers now, but the White Queen couldn't come to replace this snapshot of her daughters: it was a picture of Meg and Ruby when they were both six-years-old. Meg was actually a generally happy girl, but her usual expression could be quite serious, even dour. In the photo, a very sober-faced Meg was holding her beloved Angora rabbit, Kingsley, while her sister, Ruby, had her fist in the air like she was leading a charge. "So different ..."

"Well, maybe not," Scott replied, examining the photo with fondness. "Both of them are obsessed with animals. Meg and her rabbits; Ruby and her dog."

Emma smiled slyly. "Would you rather they be interested in _boys_?" It was the magic word. Cyclops' expression (what she could see of it) was murderous. Emma still felt miffed about what she considered her husband forcing the family into a decision over Ruby's dog. This was the perfect revenge.

"Are they, Emma?" he demanded. "You would know."

Scott was fiercely protective of their children. Emma knew his eldest daughter, Rachel, had more than a little to do with his feelings toward Meg and Ruby. Cyclops had not been exactly ... supportive when Rachel was a girl. Now he strove to be a good father to his children; in many ways, Rachel saw to it. She wanted the absolute best life for her little half-sisters.

But in other ways, Scott - like most people - had grown and matured since Rachel's birth; fatherhood seemed to suit him now.

And along with it came the all-consuming wave of overprotective parental instincts. Scott had failed to shelter and protect Rachel from the world; he seemed bound and determined not to fail his youngest girls. His methods were in vain, of course, Emma always thought in an imperious manner.

But then ... Emma was well aware she had her own issues with parenting.

"Meg is horrified by the prospect," Emma sighed. "Ruby is oblivious."

Emma knew better than to lie to her husband. Emma held true to her ethics not to pry into anyone's thoughts, but that didn't necessarily keep others' thoughts _out_ of Emma's head, especially when those thoughts and emotions were so strong - such as those of teenage boys' surrounding her lovely daughters.

Emma also knew better than to attempt the "but your teenage daughters are beautiful and growing up fast and their sentiments are subject to change" conversation with her husband. Scott was just a gigantic wall of deafness when she tried.

Scott cocked an eyebrow at Emma that seemed to say "And?"

She replied wearily: "And ... for God's sake, Scott, do you believe any boy in his right mind would dare try courting the daughters of Cyclops, leader of the X-Men?"

Scott nodded slowly, seeming satisfied for the time being, though he did grumble: "Hmph! Boy in his _right_ mind ..."

Scott suddenly tilted his head down at his wife who was lying in repose on his chest.

"Wait. Is this some sort of manipulative payback for earlier with Ruby and her dog?" he asked her.

"Hmm ... that took longer than usual, Scott. You're losing your edge," she replied, smiling up at him with doe-eyes. Emma, one of the most powerful telepaths on Earth, had other charms at her disposal.

Scott easily pulled her underneath him, gently pinning down her wrists and kissing her elegant jawline. He had always been a dominating lover, another reason Emma, who grew tired of being in control of everything every moment of every day, adored him. It was nice for someone else to be in control at times.

He moved along to her neck - a very enjoyable region for both her and him. Emma sighed softly in complete contentment and closed her eyes. "So very beautiful ..." he murmured between kisses.

"Um, have you seen my midriff lately?" she asked him.

He chuckled. "With your stretch marks and c-section scars?"

Emma blushed; she was acutely self-conscious of the affects of child-carrying and childbirth on her body. Then she smiled wryly at her husband when she realized he was teasing again.

"It's natural and beautiful and very sexy for a woman to have them," he said. "So stop worrying about it."

She smiled. She had always appreciated his attitude towards the biological functions of the female body. Some men were squeamish about certain aspects of it; Scott wasn't one of them. Menstruation, stretch marks and c-section scars did not deter him. These things were part of a normal functioning female body. Their absence meant a dysfunction.

He rested his cheek on her belly and she stroked his hair. "Did you really think Ruby didn't deserve a chance?" he murmured softly.

Emma chuckled. "Actually, I am surprised I'm not the one asking you that question."

"You're just upset because your baby girl is growing up and it's making you feel old?"

"God, Scott, if I ever decide to turn on the X-Men, I guess I'm shit out of luck. You practically know my thoughts."

"Firstly, you're as gorgeous as the day Meg was born. As the moment she was conceived," he added, enjoying the flush on her pale cheeks. "Second, do you really think my daughter would make an uninformed choice?" he asked.

"Which one?" she quipped.

"Ruby has spent almost her entire life preparing for this," he pointed out. "She seems rambunctious ..."

"And she is," Emma commented dryly. "But she also has all your leader-like qualities," she relented with a smile. " _And_ you're right when you said she's more prepared to own a pet than we were to become parents ..."

Scott gazed up at his lovely wife suspiciously. It wasn't like her to throw him a bone.

"But?" he prompted.

Emma smiled in a sad way as she reflected on her pregnancies and how she, a renowned seductress, had been seduced herself by this handsome formidable man known as Cyclops.

Her pregnancy with Meg was uneventful - to the point it was worrisome. It was too easy. No morning sickness, no pains carrying her. Meg seemed as quiet and well-behaved in utero as she did outside the womb.

As an expecting mother, it was Emma's lot to find something to be worried over - even if that something was nothing.

Megan Summers, however, was born a healthy 7-pound, 1-ounce baby with very serious thoughtful blue eyes.

But the beautiful white-haired baby had barely been born, it seemed, before Emma conceived again, much to her amazement. And dread.

From almost the moment of conception, her pregnancy with Ruby was touch-and-go. There were several occasions during those eight months both mother and child almost lost their lives. Ruby's birth was the ultimate challenge and the ultimate victory. Emma and her youngest daughter cheated death again, however, and she delivered the little girl a month earlier than her due date. But Ruby Summers was born beautiful, strong and screaming her head off.

A born fighter, literally, Ruby came into the world a warrior like her father.

"Well, we _weren't_ prepared for Megan, especially not for Ruby," Emma said. "They were conceived without careful planning, but ..." she smiled gently. "Perhaps now we have the chance to plan."

Emma could not enter Scott's thoughts. Thru his long difficult life, he had built up an immunity to telepathy. If she wanted to detect his thoughts, it wasn't like encountering a mental barrier such as Meg put up in her own mind - it was like nothing was there. The fact his face was near expressionless didn't help a curious psychic around Scott Summers' head.

But it was yet another reason she loved him so; Emma could force the truth from anyone else. With her mate, it took trust - a commodity she so scarcely had with other people.

Even so, she sensed his shock. Emma couldn't help but revel in it a bit. _You aren't the only one with surprises, Mister Summers_ , she thought smugly. That Frost pride was hard to beat down.

"You want another baby?" he said in a husky whisper.

Emma smiled, touching her lips shyly. "Well, _babies_ ..."

"Babies ..." he murmured. It took a great deal to faze the fearless leader of the X-Men. Emma's pride refused to be apologetic so she decided to enjoy watching him go from shocked to squirming. "BABIES?!"

"It's _your_ blood that carries the twin genes," she countered, back to her smug self again. Her thoughts flitted to her step-grandchildren, Rachel's twins Jeanie and Jonathan. Emma doted on them and wondered if her own could be half as charming. "It is a possibility."

"Possibility ..." Cyclops trailed off, looking relieved. Emma giggled. It was nice seeing her husband drop his stoic facade occasionally.

"This isn't your way of dealing with having two almost-grown daughters, is it?" he asked, wry again.

Emma scowled. "I wouldn't call 14 'almost-grown,' Scott. Anyway, fearless leader, we have time to plan and prepare and debate until a decision is reached."

"It seems a decision has been reached already," Cyclops laughed heartily and then rained down kisses on his wife's belly. He then paused and looked at the two diagonal scars on her otherwise flawless flesh there -

And the one vertical one.

She couldn't know his specific thoughts, but she knew the man. He wanted to wrap his family up in a protective bundle and shelter them from the heartache of the world ... but he couldn't. She couldn't either ... as powerful as she was - one of the most powerful beings on Earth - she just couldn't do it.

And time was running out ...

"Are you sure you want to start over again?" he whispered.

It was her turn to laugh. "Start over? Scott, it will never _be_ over for any of our children. We'll always worry. We'll always wonder if we could have done more no matter how much we do for them. No matter how hard we try to teach them - they're going to fail and learn and fall down and make mistakes and get back up and try again because they are strong."

"Like you?" he asked her tenderly.

She kissed his forehead. "I was actually thinking about you."

Scott grinned. "I know ..."

 **###**

Meg opened her eyes to find lupine flowers towering over her; they were the color of her eyes. The girl sat up to find herself in a meadow of the flowers. The air seemed to hum with the buzz of bees and the wonderful scent of honey. It made her drowsy.

The hillside was speckled with large splotches and smaller ones. _Dogs_. Dozens of them. A skinny ratty-looking little one nibbled at her ankle.

"Uck! Go away!" Meg ordered the mongrel, snatching her foot away for it.

"Yo, Meg!" Ruby shouted to her sister. "Are you in my dream?" A huge mastiff-looking dog was licking her ear. Another - a wiener-looking mutt - had its front paws up on her legs. Ruby was enthusiastically petting it. She was probably in heaven, Meg thought.

"Eww, no way!" Meg said, wrinkling up her nose. "Mom puts up those psy-shields for a reason, Rube."

While they slept, psychic students at the Jean Grey School were protected from being overwhelmed by the dreams of their peers by psychic-shields established by Headmistress Frost. They extended to the campus boathouse where Cyclops' family lived and protected Meg in her sleep as well.

"Hmm ..." said Ruby, surveying the scene around them. "Then this must be _your_ dream. I didn't know you dream about dogs."

"I don't!" Meg snapped. "Why would I dream about an ugly ankle-biting whippet?" She shooed at the nasty little bug-eyed dog again.

"That's an Italian greyhound actually," Ruby replied.

"Ugh! What's the difference?" Meg said.

"A big one, actually," Ruby stated with a smirk. "For starters -"

"It doesn't matter!" Meg said impatiently.

She looked around at the chaos of barking dogs. Funny how one Summers sister's heaven could be the other's hell. Meg thought how much better it would look if all those dogs were rabbits ...

Suddenly, the dozens of dogs were replaced with twitch-nosed bunny rabbits - Lionheads, Flemish Giants and tiny Netherland dwarfs. "Oh!" Meg gasped in delight.

"Hey, what happened?" Ruby demanded, her ear now being nuzzled by an enormous Flemish Giant.

"Lucid dreaming," Meg explained with a smug look. "I guess this _is_ my dream ... but that doesn't explain the dogs."

"Maybe it's a nightmare," Ruby suggested glibly. "Ew, Meg, stop wishing for more rabbits!"

"I'm not," her sister giggled, surveying the now hundreds of snuffling bunnies.

When she turned back to Ruby, Meg did a double-take. Her sister was dressed in armor with a mighty shield bearing a dog crest.

"Wha -? How?" Meg spluttered.

Ruby laughed at her sister's expression. "I thought I'd give it a try," she explained, looking rather surprised herself.

"B-But this is _my_ dream!" Meg whined.

"Yeah? Explain this!" Ruby was suddenly sitting astride a noble steed - a lean wolfhound the size of a pony. "Look, I'm a knight!"

"That's ... nice," her sister replied. Then she grinned mischievously. Ruby's armor vanished to be replaced by a waistcoat and a black coat with coat-tails.

"Yuck! What?" Ruby exclaimed, looking down at her new clothes in disgust.

"Hee, hee, you want to be a knight, eh?" Meg giggled. "Now you're a Victorian knight."

"Gross," Ruby muttered. She glared at Meg and suddenly her sister was dressed in a flowing silky pink gown.

"Oh, blah!" she said in revulsion.

"Now _you're_ a princess," Ruby guffawed.

"You know I hate pink!" Meg snapped. "It clashes with my eyes and hair."

She glared right back at Ruby - who was suddenly sitting on a gigantic grey rabbit.

"Hey, leave my wish alone!" yelled Ruby.

"OK, OK," Meg said, laughing. The rabbit turned back into a wolfhound.

"Thanks!" Ruby beamed. The giant rabbit appeared again beneath Meg this time. "Let's race, Meggie!"

Her steed reared back and plunged forward to race away thru the blue flowers.

"Hey, wait for me!" Meg shouted, her rabbit mount taking enormous leaps after Ruby and her wolfhound.

The sisters raced thru the meadow, happily laughing, until they encountered a flock of enormous eyeballs staring at them menacingly (though to be fair, that's probably all they could do).

"Ew, dream-balls!" said Ruby.

" _Ruby_!" Meg snapped, sounding eerily like their mother.

"Sorry, sis, I'll take care of these nards."

"If you're supposed to be a knight where is your sword?"

"Don't need one." Ruby ripped off her shades and her ocular beams ripped thru an oncoming eyeball which exploded into showers of glitter.

"Ruby, you aren't supposed to do that without a grownup around!" Meg scolded, appalled. Her sister had never disobeyed that strict rule.

Ruby seemed amazed at her own actions too, but she was smiling proudly to herself. "No worries, sis, it's just a dream, after all. Why should I hold back?"

"B-But ..." Meg sputtered.

"Here comes another one!" Ruby shouted, her concussive beams slicing another eyeball in half. Soon the sisters were covered in glitter. Meg saw Ruby's mischievous grin and burst out laughing. She had to admit this was fun. Ruby had been taught since infancy to keep her powers in check; Meg wondered if she ever tired of it like Meg did with constantly maintaining psy-sheilds when out in public.

It was good to see her cut lose for once.

The eyeball flock bobbed away and Ruby's dog and Meg's rabbit bucked the sisters off into the soft grass where they lay giggling together.

"My brave knight!" Meg said, pretending to swoon.

Ruby laughed until tears were rolling down her cheeks under her glasses.

The sisters were shaken out of their laughing fit by a strange sound. It sounded like a stringed instrument - a guitar - but very high-pitched and tinny.

"Ugh, Meggie, is your dream soundtrack that horrid mushy 'soft rock' you insist on listening to?" Ruby demanded.

"I prefer to call it late 20th century pop/rock easy listening," Meg replied with a sniff. "And it's very relaxing."

Ruby snorted.

"But I didn't wish for it," Meg said, giving her sister a pointed look.

"Uck, don't look at me!" Ruby said, sticking out her tongue.

"Hang on, I know this song ..."

 _I see a red door and I want to paint it black;_ _No colors anymore, I want them to turn black._

"It's a sitar," Meg said thoughtfully.

"Excuse me?" Ruby replied.

"It's a stringed instrument – kind of like a guitar, but you have to sit down to play it."

"Ah, a 'sitting guitar' – a sit-tar," Ruby concluded. "I see."

Meg narrowed her eyes at her sister. "No, you don't; you see –"

"Let's investigate!" Ruby crowed and ran away towards the sound. Meg groaned and followed. There was a little clearing in the field of lupine; on it grew a tall tree. It sort of looked like a cherry tree in full bloom, but its canopy was strangely flat.

A woman sat in its shade playing the sitar. She was short, standing up shorter than Meg, the girl guessed, but the tall instrument made her seem even smaller. Her fingers were very fine and delicate, like a squirrel's paws, Meg thought, as they teased the song out of the sitar.

Her hair was very curly. And red. Very red … like Rachel's, but darker like Jeanie's. It was tied back in a style that made her hair curve down over one slim shoulder. Meg had tried that on Ruby's hair, but her sister's wild tresses refused to be tamed. Meg watched one curl pop out of its binding as the woman played. The girl wondered wryly if this style actually did its job on this lady's hair.

"It doesn't if you must know," the woman said, not looking up. "My hair has a mind of its own. It does what it wants no matter what I do. Ironic, considering," she added, glancing up at the sisters. Her eyes were wide and expressive and deep green. Freckles sprinkled her nose. Meg disliked her own freckles and had hoped to outgrow them.

"You may. It's hard to tell where something might end up at its beginning," the woman said, sitting aside her instrument. "Even for me and even in this place. The future spans before us like a wide steady river being cut into smaller tributaries. Possible alternate futures. Who knows the one which will ultimately happen?"

Meg was annoyed. This woman was clearly telepathic and clearly looking into her thoughts. Meg had been taught since infancy to build up mental barriers to keep her thoughts to herself and others' out of her head.

But a very powerful telepath could break thru them and be privy to Meg's musings. It was extremely unethical.

"It's wrong what you're doing," Meg grumbled, flushing slightly. What else could this stranger "see" in Meg's mind? Her cheeks turned pinker. She could usually sense when someone, even her own mom, was trying to read her thoughts. This woman must be extremely powerful, Meg thought nervously, not to give herself away psychically while probing the girl's thoughts.

Who was she? Wouldn't Meg know if the woman was that powerful? Omega-level. That's what Uncle Hank would call a … _Gifted_ person with especially strong powers.

"Don't know of any rules forbidding the sitar," the woman said with a smile.

Ruby giggled a bit in response. Meg cut her sister a dark look. She could tell Ruby liked this stranger already only having known her less than five minutes.

"It's wrong to look into the private thoughts of others," the girl stated, frowning.

"Meg, she isn't," Ruby said, tugging her sister's sleeve. "Look!" She pointed at the sky. Meg glanced up and saw writing there where clouds should be. The words spelled there said: " _And she's irritating too, speaking in stupid riddles_ …" Meg's thoughts spelled out like sky-writing from a little airplane like on the cartoons.

Meg's whole face blushed red-hot as more of her own thoughts appeared in the air overhead. " _What does a naked person actually look like? Like in real life? They kinda look ugly in textbooks_ …"

The woman appeared to be holding in a laugh. "I could tell you if you really want."

"We don't!" Meg snapped as Ruby opened her mouth to ask.

"Well, this is not a dream, neither yours nor Ruby's," the woman said.

" _There she goes again, one step ahead of me_!" the sky-writing exclaimed. Now, Ruby was laughing out loud. Meg had been raised to understand she always had the advantage over others; now this woman really challenged her and it annoyed her – and scared her more than a little.

Meg wrestled with her emotions; she had to try very hard not to express them … or even feel them. There was an excellent chance this stranger was also an empath. Most telepaths, especially powerful ones, were.

"I am not I'm telling you," the redhead said with that same annoying little smile and that knowing look in her wide green eyes. "It is simply the nature of this place, little one."

 _Little ONE_?!

"I know you're practically fifteen, Megan," the woman said.

"So what is this place if not a dream?" Ruby asked, ignoring her perturbed sister. "And how do you know us?" Meg sensed Ruby wasn't suspicious, just generally curious. Meg almost wished for her sense of innocence.

" _Naked people_?" sky-writing from a little red airplane zoomed thru the air. Meg's airplane was blue.

"Yes," the woman said. "And this is the Astral Plane. I expected you sooner or later, Meg – sooner, knowing your talents – but I am genuinely surprised to see you here now, Ruby, though I did foresee that possibility. A slight possibility, but still there.

"The Astral Plane is sort of a telepathic neutral ground," the woman said, to save time, it appeared to Meg. "Think of it as a server telepaths can access with their minds – usually subconsciously – such as what you two are doing now. The reason you mistook it for a dream. Since all psychics can technically access the Astral Plane, they can take information from it, but at the price of sharing their own thoughts, dreams and desires."

 _Desires_ …?

"Yes, desires, Meg. Your thoughts seem so bleak. It does not suit you."

Meg was getting angry.

"How come you can see our thoughts if not thru telepathy?" Ruby said. She seemed to be thoroughly enjoying this. It was a big adventure to her; her sister's acute annoyance and bemusement was a bonus.

"Well, it's like I said. The Astral Plane is like a huge psychic server," the woman explained, thoughtfully plucking at the sitar strings again. "All those who access it lay bare their thoughts here for all to see. And past, present and future are all one here."

At that moment, a small tow-headed girl – Meg, age three – sauntered by with an armful of plastic ponies. Ruby, age two but already taller than her sister, romped after her on a stick-horse, screamed "Rustlers!" and rudely yanked all of Meg's ponies away. She galloped away hooting with Meg in hot pursuit.

Teenage Meg and Ruby stared at their past-selves.

"How that is possible I do not know," the woman replied calmly before Ruby could ask. "And I have been here a long time."

"How long?" Ruby managed to croak.

The woman's smile was sad and wistful, her green eyes misty. "Hmm, a little over three decades in your reality. But here time has no consequence."

"Which explains why you don't look a day over twenty-two," Meg put in sulkily.

The woman smiled at Meg like she was an old friend.

 _But you aren't. I don't know you; how can I trust you_? The little blue airplane puttered thru the sky.

Meg glared at the stranger. She technically wasn't doing anything wrong. Meg's thoughts were on display for all to see here. This woman wasn't even eavesdropping; how could you not listen in on words being shouted at you?

Then why did this _feel_ so wrong?

"So this place is a free-for-all?" Ruby asked, with an almost manic look of delight. "Cool! I shot down some glitter sky-balls with my eye-beams."

The woman smiled at Ruby. "And how did that feel?"

"Amazing! I've never been allowed to cut lose that way – not even in the Danger Room!" Ruby gushed.

"That's one good asset of the Astral Plane. There are no consequences here. It is a good place for release, especially for one with powers like _you_ , Ruby," the woman said, but her eyes were trained on Megan.

"Society needs rules, to keep us safe. People with powers require control," Meg argued, almost revolted by the woman's pointed look.

"They also require release," she replied. "Logic and control must be tempered by emotion and release. Frustration and anger must be expressed – why not in a vacuum such as this where it cannot hurt others?"

Meg opened her mouth to reply, but couldn't argue with the woman's logic. She had been taught control since the day she was born – tempering and suppressing her powers to keep herself and others safe. But complete release? Losing herself in blissful oblivion?

"But why am _I_ here?" Ruby asked. "I am not telepathic."

"Well, yet," the woman said.

"I could be telepathic?" Ruby said in surprise. Pleasant surprise – for Ruby, not necessarily for Meg. Ruby's powers were flashy and loud, like their father's. Meg's were quiet and subtle, but with the same potential to be dangerous, perhaps even more so than her sister's. Emma knew her daughters thru and thru and Meg knew Ruby so well, she was almost a part of her. Wouldn't they have guessed this about Ruby before this stranger had? Meg's suspicion and dislike of the woman grew.

"Awesome! I'm gonna be a _psychic_!" Ruby exclaimed, doing a little victory dance.

What annoyed Meg most was how the woman looked at her and Ruby, with the same patient pride as their own mother … like they were her own daughters.

"Secondary mutation, Ruby," she explained. "And perhaps more … telekinetic abilities as well."

Both girls' heads snapped up to stare at the woman. Rachel was telekinetic. Their father had known another woman, a colleague, with powerful telekinesis and telepathy. But those were all the people Meg had ever even heard of with this powerful gift. It was extremely rare.

Ruby, of course, looked like she was about to pass out from sheer delight.

" _Yes_! Watch out, big sis!" she shouted, punching the air.

For all her quiet thoughtful attitude, Meg knew she was considered the more powerful of the two sisters. Ruby was rambunctious and obnoxious at times, but Meg didn't doubt she would step up to train hard to control whatever powers she had. However, this prediction made Meg feel … jealous. She had been "alpha sister" for 14 years. She had trained hard to get a grip on her very powerful telepathy – where the hell was _her_ cool new powers?!

Not that it mattered. This was a sham, a farce. Meg's weird dreams had collided with Ruby's … somehow. None of this was actually real.

"If you mean in your reality, then no it isn't," the woman replied to Meg's unspoken thoughts. "But this place does very much exist. Ask your sister Rachel if you doubt me. Meanwhile, don't just reject all that is here because you don't agree with it. Don't you want to be happy for Ruby, Megan?"

 _Rachel_?!

"Yes, Rachel," the woman stated calmly. "She's been coming to this place since she was much younger than you."

Meg was losing her temper, something she rarely did … and something that was deeply dangerous. Meg had been taught and knew firsthand what her emotions could do unchecked.

"Listen, _lady_ , you'll just repeat my thoughts back to me, so let me _say_ this to you loud and clear," she snarled, the picture of the ferocious White Queen when Emma was in a temper, which was not a healthy time or place for anyone to be. "You keep your creepy self away from my _sisters_ – _all_ my sisters, you understand?"

"If you believe this place – and therefore I – am not real, what do any of you have to fear of me?" the woman asked with that same calm, infuriating neutral tone that made Meg want to claw her eyeballs out.

Meg snatched up her sister's hand. "We're going, Ruby!" she growled and marched downhill from the tree, dragging her sister after her.

Ruby seemed befuddled by Meg's behavior. _This place is fun. That lady is nice. Why is Meg such a spoil-sport_? Ruby's worried thoughts crowded into Meg's brain as they marched along.

"Go carefully, little ones," the woman called softly after them.

"Stupid woman …" Meg muttered, her vise-like grip growing tighter on Ruby's wrist.

"Ow! Meggie stop! You're hurting me …" Ruby whimpered.

"Wha – ?" Meg was shaken from her upset thoughts by her sister's cry, but Meg couldn't put a scratch on Ruby's bio-organic ruby-quartz skin.

"God, Meg!" Ruby screamed in obvious pain, doubling over.

"N-No!" Meg stammered. She was projecting her troubled angry thoughts and they were hurting anyone nearby – in this case Ruby, causing awful spasms of pain in the girl's brain. This had happened only a few times in her life and only when Meg lost her temper. And it was one major reason Meg had to be in control of her telepathy – and emotions – at all times. Because once they were out of control, they were almost impossible to rein in.

Almost.

"W-We have to get Mamma!" Ruby gasped thru what Meg knew were horrifying waves of mental pain. Emma was powerful enough to shut down Meg's telepathy. When Meg had a nightmare, her mom was usually there to wake her up and calm her down. Where the hell was she now?

"Meg, please stop!" Ruby shrieked, clutching her head in agony. "Please wake up!"

"I-I'm trying!" Meg replied, sobbing. She would rather hurt anyone, even her own mom and dad, other than Ruby. "I- oh God, Ruby, I'm sorry!"

But she couldn't stop. Her angry emotions turned furious and seemed to engulf Meg in a black wave of apathy. This was phase-two of a telepathic storm caused by Meg Summers. She didn't care now who she hurt as long as _she caused pain_.

Phase-three would be the worst. Emma had never allowed her daughter to reach it, because then Meg's telepathic fury would engulf, torture and possibly kill everyone around her – including her family and closest friends.

Meg was barely conscious now; in fact, the only thing keeping her emotions from taking over her mind completely was her sister's firm grip on her hand. A coward would have run away in panic; a fool might have thoughtlessly stood her ground. But Ruby Summers was brave, not stupid. She had seen firsthand what her sister could do when she lost control – it was to her credit how she held onto Meg until help arrived in the form of their mother.

But where was Emma? Why couldn't they wake up and be safe and snug in Meg's bed?

Suddenly, the mysterious woman appeared with one hand on her sitar, the other in the air as if giving a stern command; her long hair, free of its bounds, fanned out majestically around her.

"Be gone from this place!" she shouted. It was hard to believe a woman with such a calm demeanor could be capable of such a booming voice – as if it belonged to someone – _something_ – else.

Fire appeared behind the woman's form and then, before the sisters' watering eyes, took the shape of a gigantic fiery bird of prey, sharp flaming talons and beak raking the air as Meg and Ruby finally lost consciousness.

 **###**

Ruby awoke to the sound of a strong steady heartbeat and what felt like a warm furry hot-water bottle pressed against her cheek. The girl looked up blearily into the furry blue face of her Uncle Hank.

"Well, now, look who's decided to join the living," he said with all his usual dry wit.

"Uhhh … head hurts …" Ruby murmured.

"Not surprising, considering your sister's emotions tried to tear it apart," Uncle Hank replied. "Be still, child!" he scolded her as he shifted her weight in his arms. For Dr. Henry "Hank" McCoy, 6-foot 10 and almost 500 pounds of pure muscle, carrying his wayward niece was a bit like lifting a feather. And the huge blue man, better known as the X-Man Beast, could fuss over Meg and Ruby almost as bad as their Mamma.

"I'm 14 today," Ruby persisted. "I'm getting a _dog_ , for your information."

"Indeed," Hank replied, deadpan.

"Le' me down," she growled, pushing against his thick blue fur. Ruby stood and then wobbled like a newborn pony.

Hank McCoy slanted a furry black eyebrow down at his niece as he caught her.

"Are you quite done being stubborn?"

"Heh, heh, nope," Ruby laughed weakly.

"Well, that's your father's blood for you," Beast sighed. He shifted her weight into one humongous arm, cradling her to his chest like a baby gorilla. "And a great deal of your big sisters' too. My stars, I grew up with Summers children and now I am growing old with them."

Ruby tried to look tough, but that was very hard to do when her Uncle Hank was holding her in one arm while unlocking his lab with the other. The man had birthed her and, with the exception of Meg, no one knew her better. Right now, he knew his impetuous niece wanted to run off and find out the state of her sister. Ruby knew, however, she wasn't going anywhere until Beast had looked her over and found her, more or less, unharmed.

As the School's resident doctor, Dr. McCoy was used to patching up all manner of injury the super-powered students could sustain. It went without saying, perhaps, that Ruby and her many unwitting victims were regular patients of his.

But Beast meant so much more to Ruby and her family. He was a brother in all but blood to her dad; he had essentially raised Ruby's half-sister Rachel. Rachel was full of funny stories about how she had called Hank "Daddy" when she was little. Rachel had no idea he wasn't. The fact he was enormous, furry and blue did not deter her.

And, now, he was the supportive friend and mentor to Cyclops' youngest daughters. Ruby couldn't imagine life, hers or anyone else's, without Beast.

"Meg?" she croaked weakly as they entered his med lab. It gleamed metallically. Vivaldi played comfortingly in the background. It was a sound from Ruby's earliest memories.

"Is safe in no small part to you, your mother is attending her," Hank assured his niece as he laid the girl on the exam table. She tried to sit up and promptly collapsed. Hank sighed again as he pillowed her head with a furry hand. "And, _no_ ," he said firmly as she opened her mouth again. "Best to let telepaths sort this out for themselves."

 _Hmph, for now_! Ruby thought silently, remembering the mystery woman's words from the Astral Plane.

Beast had stopped bustling about, inspecting Ruby for injury, and was now gazing intently at her. Did he suspect something? Ruby wondered. Like Cyclops, Hank had just lived so long and seen so many strange things, most often he could tell you what you were thinking.

Now, Ruby could tell Beast suspected her hiding something from him.

"Tell me what happened," he said, taking her relatively tiny hand in his own paw-like one. "Meg doesn't cause a telepathic storm unless she subconsciously feels threatened, usually."

So this meant the grownups didn't know where the girls had been … if indeed that place actually existed. _It must_! Ruby thought excitedly with a weird mixture of anticipation and fear. Meg wouldn't flip her shit over a bad dream would she?

If the Astral Plane was indeed a threat why couldn't Ruby sense it? She could be over-enthusiastic and a bit reckless, but her instincts were almost as sharp as her dad's. And if she indeed had latent telepathy …?

But why didn't Emma know about it? She was as powerful as telepaths come, Ruby thought. Why couldn't she access it? She knew her Mamma would not invade her daughters' minds unless the circumstances were dire. Well, a psychic storm was sure-as-hell dire, Ruby supposed.

She told Hank none of this. Why didn't she? Ruby had no idea. He had seen his share of weird circumstances; he could perhaps help her figure out a solution to this one.

But some instinct in Ruby's brain told her to hold back. If she told she might not get to go back there and she needed to …

The secret to her latent telekinesis was there and perhaps thousands more secrets to discover.

Hank continued gazing at his niece with his thoughtful gentle amber eyes. Finally, he backed off, shaking his head. Henry McCoy was not one to push his nieces. When they wanted to talk to him, they would.

At that moment, Meg entered the lab. She looked exhausted and slightly bewildered, but for the most part, safe. Emma and Scott were behind their eldest daughter; both looked as worn out as she did.

Ruby flung herself at her sister – and landed on her face. Hank _tsked_ and Meg laughed as she pulled Ruby up. "Sit down, little sis," she scolded her. "You must be tired from saving my life."

"Saving _our_ lives," Scott said with a weary smile. He put a hand proudly on his youngest girl's shoulder.

Ruby looked into Meg's eyes and they gazed back at her almost absently. Did she even remember? Meg very rarely caused a telepathic storm, but these events were Ruby's earliest and most vivid memories. During them, Meg made all her nightmares come true – man-sized black spiders crawling on the ceiling, eyeballs being chopped up in a blender, lightening striking the house and splitting in two. It was hard to forget something like that, Ruby thought, but afterward Meg seemed to have no memory of the chaos and terror she created.

She certainly didn't seem to now.

All she remembered was Ruby standing with her and not running away. Meg threw her arms around her sister. Ruby was usually the demonstrative one and she felt a bit embarrassed by her sister's affection.

Ruby glanced at her Mamma. She could sense Emma scanning her thoughts for any lasting mental injury the same way Uncle Hank had Ruby for physical damage, but she didn't seem to detect any memories of the Astral Plane.

Did it even matter now? Ruby thought joyfully, relief making her dizzy. Meg was safe. They were all safe. Surely that was all that mattered?

Meg whispered in her ear. "I knew you wouldn't go and let us die … not when I've found you the perfect _puppy_!"

Ruby's eyes widened behind her shades. She screamed.


	5. Puppies!

**Welp** **, here we are again! All characters belong to Marvel except Oliza, Eleanor and Martin. They belong to me. Oliza is the daughter of Nightcrawler; Eleanor and Martin are his grand-kids.**

 ** _Pride and Prejudice_ does not belong to me either.**

 **To Ogygian Spring - Yep, I am putting some rather obscure characters in the spotlight, but I suppose it is credit to what a complete geek I am! Thanks for reading and your continuing support!**

 **I hope you enjoy this chapter! Please read and comment! I want to know how you think I am doing.**

 **Love, Maria**

 ** _Chapter V: Puppies!_**

Meg sat in the family room spinning alpaca fleece into thread.

It was two days after the telepathic storm she had caused and she remembered almost none of it - none except her sister Ruby clinging to her hand and refusing to let go, despite what Meg knew was incredible mental pain on Ruby's behalf.

Meg was swept up in a whirlwind of guilt - she could have put her entire family thru that kind of suffering.

Of course, her parents were ultra-supportive and kind.

"It's in the nature of some people's powers to lose control," her father said. Cyclops was a stern leader and father-figure, but fair. And, of course, he spoke from experience. His concussive eye-beams would never be completely contained.

"That is why you have friends and _family_ to show support when you need it," Emma added, brightly.

Her mom's words were sincere, but Meg also knew Emma was curious about the details of the events surrounding her daughter's psychic storm. However, Meg thought her mom shouldn't even waste her time asking her; Meg barely recalled what had happened.

Nobody really knew why Megan unintentionally mentally attacked those around her - Uncle Hank theorized it was caused by Meg subconsciously sensing a threat.

She had first done it when she was two years old and her best friend, Jeanie, was attacked by a mountain lion. If it hadn't been for Jeanie's twin brother Jonathan's quick thinking, the girls probably would have both died.

The memory itself was very dim in Meg's mind, but she keenly remembered the fear that gripped her during that time - the puma's shining blue eyes, Jeanie stretching her hand out to the giant cat, Jonathan's incomprehensible shout of terror.

Then nothing ... but an impression of fear stamped in Meg's memory.

This latest storm was the same. Meg remembered feeling safe and happy with her sister - then waking up in Uncle Hank's lab with her mom holding her hand and Ruby clinging to the other like life depended on it. Between those times ... Meg couldn't recall anything but a huge blank space filled up with an emotion of terror.

Even more horrifying was Emma could not detect telepathically what had happened to Meg during this "missing time."

But Ruby could ...

Meg sensed it; Ruby knew what had happened. But she refused to tell anyone. Hell, she refused to acknowledge it had even happened. And the weirdest part was Meg couldn't sense her sister's thoughts surrounding the event. In fact, she had not been able to detect any of her sister's thoughts or emotions for the past two days.

Prior to this, it took all Meg could to keep her sister's thoughts _out_ of her head. Now ... it wasn't like Ruby was putting up a mental shield against her sister. It was like those memories surrounding the telepathic storm weren't there in Ruby's mind. Sort of like how their father was immune to telepathy.

To note Cyclops had told Meg to back off from Ruby - her sister would share with them about the events surrounding Meg's telepathic seizure when she was ready, he stated gravely.

Meg wondered if her father had said the same to her mom.

Could Emma sense the - _absence_ \- of these memories in Ruby's brain? Meg sensed Emma could not and that the White Queen found it as disturbing as Meg did. For a telepath "missing time" in a person's memory was sort of like encountering a zombie. Something that should be there, but wasn't.

What was terrifying was nothing, not something.

Ruby was definitely hiding something. Or, more specifically, nothing. But all the Summers family could do was wait for the youngest member to open up about it.

 _What could it be_? Meg wondered as she gently pushed the treadle of her spinning wheel. The alpaca fleece easily raveled into thread between Meg's nimble fingers. It was soothing to the girl, just like carding wool or crocheting yarn into stockings or scarves. Tedious, monotonous work that allowed her to focus on painstaking tasks, so thoughts and emotions did not overwhelm her. It was a method of coping many telepaths resorted to, sort of how Rachel liked sand-painting and puzzles.

In the aftermath of the telepathic storm, everyone was taking a break, it seemed. Even Emma and Scott were having "couple time" on the family room sofa - now that Winter Break was upon them, they could relax a bit from their duties at the Jean Grey School. The kids were usually strictly forbidden to intervene in their parents' couple time, but Meg was still quite frail from the recent events and the two didn't mind their daughter doing her quiet work in the same room.

They were watching one of Ruby's tacky "explosion" movies with lots of slick shiny cars, big muscle-bound dudes and, of course, lots and lots of fire and shrapnel. Emma was usually mindful not to let her snarky side come out around her girls, but this was just too much for the White Queen.

"There is absolutely no way Mister Diesel Truck is going to make it," Emma argued. "A convertible car leaping from one level of a skyscraper to another? Impossible, dear."

"He might could do it with the correct trajectory," Cyclops countered. "Someone needs to get the Trope-Scoper's on this."

"The what?" Emma asked.

"You know, the Trope-Scoper's?" her husband replied. "The TV show that busts myths presented in popular culture?"

Emma laughed. "You and Ruby are watching too much television!"

Scott grinned in reply. His stubbly chin was rubbing his wife's forehead as she nuzzled up against his shoulder. His arm was around her shoulders and his hand subtly brushed her chest.

Meg watched her parents fondly - she could feel their warm affection thru Emma's glowing emotions. Many of her peers thought parental love was gooey and gross ... and it was, Meg admitted. But it was also very sweet, she thought.

There were times she wondered if she could feel that sort of closeness to someone. Romantic love. Meg had been told she was beautiful ... mostly by her mom, because that's what mothers do, she supposed. With a sister like Ruby, well, attention was usually pegged squarely on the youngest Summers which was fine by Meg for the most part. She didn't like that sort of attention from boys.

Of course, it was embarrassing the sort of attention Ruby drew her way, but Meg wasn't envious of it. She remembered clearly when she had just turned 14 "hearing" a very loud thought in the School hallway: " _Lookit that hair! Like spun gold. Beautiful. And freckles - so cute!_ " Blushing furiously, she'd turned to face a new student, 14-year-old Howard Najeer. He seemed as alarmed as she was. Meg had fled, scared to death. She was used to picking up on especially strong thoughts and emotions, just usually not about her and her, um, _self_.

Meg suddenly felt an overwhelming wave of emotion – Ruby's wave of emotion – pure _joy_. Meg had spent the past 13 years dealing with her sister's emotions. For the past two days, Meg had been starved of them. To feel this sudden bolt of mental energy from her baby sister made Meg feel almost as much joy as she sensed Ruby was.

Her mother sensed it too and Meg could tell Emma was relieved; in the wake of the storm, her baby girl was getting back to her old self. Emma glanced wryly at her husband and eldest daughter, a smirk tugging at her lips. The White Queen did all she could to appear collected and cool, even around her own family, but they knew she was struggling not to laugh.

"All right, places everyone," she ordered them.

Meg and Scott laughed together. Meg grabbed a framed photograph on the mantle while her father steadied several of her porcelain horse figurines in a case near the sofa. Emma put one hand on a blue-and-white vase as Ruby stampeded thru the door. Only one porcelain figurine fell to the floor and shattered this time. Not bad.

"Heather had her _babies_!" Ruby screamed. Another horsie figurine fell and shattered.

"Yes, I know," Emma replied calmly, but she couldn't stop beaming at her girl. Scott and Meg grinned at each other. Angsty closed-off Ruby just wasn't the same as the bouncy one. "I sensed Oliza's extreme happiness this morning … though not as extreme as yours, honey," she added with a smile at Ruby.

Heather the Shetland sheepdog belonged to Oliza, Ruby's hockey coach and fencing teacher. Oliza had informed the Summers two days ago that her Sheltie was expecting puppies – one of which she promised to Ruby.

"Can we go now?! Can we GO?!" Ruby cried, hopping from foot to foot like she was stepping on hot coals.

Meg doubted the most hard-hearted villain could have refused her sister this. Ruby couldn't cope with monotonous activities the way Meg did; she hadn't the attention span. However, the news of her own puppy had helped sustain the youngest Summers thru this difficult time - though Emma had forbade Ruby to nag or hover over Heather. If she hadn't the girl would have run to Oliza's quarters at the School every 15 minutes to see if the pups had arrived. The girls were allowed to breakfast at the School mess hall if they wanted. Meg usually didn't because of her aversion to crowds, but for some reason, Ruby had breakfasted there for the past two mornings, despite it being Winter Break and most of her friends had gone.

"We'll go, Rube," Cyclops chuckled. "After you help clean up and promise to buy Meg a new horse figurine."

Ruby would have argued under different circumstances, but the prospect of puppies would have persuaded her to do anything, Meg thought.

"And not a cheapo one!" Meg added sharply, but she was secretly happy. Her sister had been so distant the past few days, Meg found herself missing even her most annoying behavior. "I want an exact replica of Rainbow Harpy."

"Deal! Let's go!" Ruby cried, bouncing around like a puppy herself.

 **###**

"They're so ... _squishy_ ," Ruby murmured in reverence.

"They're small mammals. What did you expect?" Meg countered. She had to admit Heather's pups were cute. Sort of. Probably because they looked a bit like rabbit kittens which were the most adorable animals in the whole world according to Meg.

The dog puppies had tiny paws drawn up tight to their bodies. Blunt pink muzzles. Huge heads and eyes sealed tight. These dogs had not grown into large, loud, rabbit-eating predators yet.

The Summers girls were kneeling over Heather's basket, admiring her brood. Heather hovered nearby protectively. Meg and especially Ruby were familiar to her. (Ruby was a bit starstruck by Oliza's dog and would admire her wistfully from afar.) So she would tolerate the girls' familiarities with her pups, so long as her mistress allowed it.

Heather, an extremely dignified dependable respectable Sheltie, was Oliza's service dog. Oliza could only hear sounds at a certain pitch - much higher than most people could hear - so her Sheltie alerted her to sounds along the full range of pitches.

Oliza sat in a chair nearby with little Martin in her lap. This was the first proper day of Winter Break and all the teachers at the Jean Grey School deserved a proper one, but the mute woman was only too happy to indulge the energetic Ruby.

With her smooth blue skin and sleek straight dark-blue hair, Meg thought Oliza a very exotic beauty, though she knew the teacher shared what Meg considered her unusual appearance with her enormous family made up of seven sisters and countless nieces and nephews. With her lightening-quick reflexes and ability to teleport from one place to another within short range, Oliza was also a formidable fighter just like her father, the X-Man known as Nightcrawler. Despite her short stature, Oliza Wagner - an excellent swordswoman - could stand-up to the rowdiest student in her fencing league. That is, Ruby Summers.

Her daughter, little Eleanor, age three, clung to her Mamma's skirts, sullen and glowering at the Summers girls. She stood out even more than Oliza; the little girl had bright straw-colored hair that clashed with her indigo skin. She was highly possessive of Heather and didn't like the idea of Ruby getting one of her pups.

Her little brother Martin was one-year-old and a handsome baby boy with chubby cheeks and fat arms which he waved around enthusiastically, enjoying whatever hubbub was going on around him - which, considering he lived at a School for children with powerful gifts, was usually often and a lot. His black curls clung tightly to his head and his big soulful brown eyes didn't point him out as much as Eleanor's bright amber ones. He still had the dark-blue skin and pointy ears of the Wagner family clan, however.

"'Uppies!" he chirped gleefully. Then he held out his pudgy hands to Emma. "Em, Em!" he whined.

Martin was enamored with Emma; no big surprise, considering his Mamma had had a huge crush on her former teacher and mentor when Oliza was a little girl. Emma happily took the baby from Oliza and he immediately began batting playfully at her long straight hair and gurgling in his charming way.

Emma was pretty gushy and gooey around babies, Meg thought. Meg didn't have much time for them. Baby animals were cuter, not to mention humanoid babies were loud, annoying and time-intensive. Baby ungulates were on their feet and ready to run within hours of their birth. Hell, even baby predators were more-or-less independent at a few months of age. Babies took _years_ to raise up to any semblance of independence.

But for some reason many people loved them. It was mystifying, in Meg's opinion. In fact ... she had noticed her mother a bit more invested in the babies of colleagues at the School than usual. Emma was the first to reach for a pudgy baby like Martin or even a wrinkly red newborn infant.

 _Why is she suddenly so obsessed_? Meg wondered, attempting to tap deeper into her mom's emotions.

 _Do you like the babies, darling_? the White Queen addressed Meg directly telepathically, not thru the shared family psy-link. Megan glanced at her mom who was watching her with slightly narrowed eyes. It was Emma's way of telling her eldest child to telepathically back off. Meg flushed and turned her attention back to the puppies, but not before thinking: " _Ah-hah, she is hiding something_!"

" _Yes,_ " Emma's "voice" chimed in Meg's head. " _And, currently, it's exactly none of your business, hon._ "

Well, of course that just made Meg want to know what it was! Sometimes she wondered if all moms were so sneaky or if it was just her own.

Meg looked at her father hopefully, but Cyclops, of course, was sharing nothing. Megan did notice a smile on his face that seemed ... _different_ as he made an equal fuss over Oliza's children and Heather's puppies.

Oh, her parents were up to something ...

 _Ruby has her pick of the litter,_ Oliza signed with her hands to the assembled people. She communicated primarily in sign language and the majority of her colleagues and students had at least a rudimentary understanding of it. Ruby could sign almost as well as her teacher. Meg too. It was just as well. In the hockey rink, it was so loud Oliza couldn't make her players understand her any other way.

At this, Eleanor stuck her bottom lip out and pouted. Resentment radiated off the girl. _I'm the puppies' sister_! her bitter thoughts invaded Meg's mind. _I should have pick of the litter_.

Cyclops picked up the little blue girl and swung her to make her laugh.

"Which puppy is yours, Rube?" Cyclops asked his daughter. Ruby didn't react in the expected way, Meg thought, by shouting, fist-pumping and jumping up and down. Instead, the smile on her face was thoughtful and gentle. With her shades and that secretively happy expression, she looked amazingly like her father.

The three biggest pups had Heather's bold merle-blue markings. The fourth was considerably smaller and tan.

 _The three blues are female; the little tan one is the boy_ , Oliza signed.

 _You have Heather all the time_ , she signed to her little daughter in Scott's arms. _Ruby has wanted a dog her whole life_.

Eleanor scowled and signed fiercely at Ruby. _Treat the puppy well - or else_!

The girl puppies were suckling busily now from their Mamma, but the little male was crawling away from Heather, nosing the air blindly.

"O-Oh!" Ruby gasped in wonderment. "He notices me!"

 _He is probably trying to smell his way back to his mother_ , Meg thought, but still Ruby's was a sweet sentiment.

"Him. I want him," Ruby said softly, never turning from the pup.

Meg was a bit disappointed and surprised. Her loud brazen sister had chosen the runt. She could tell Emma, who was enamored with all things beautiful, was a bit surprised as well.

"Well, why him, love?" the White Queen asked as waves of shock pulsed off her mind and into Meg's.

"I dunno," Ruby murmured. The pup was so close to her now, she could put a fingertip on his tiny brown nose. Meg had never seen her sister so gentle and still - even in her sleep, she was wrestling. "H-He's little, y'know. He needs me."

Emma and Scott smiled tenderly at one another in that secretive way that was driving Meg bonkers.

"Can I take him home? I could feed him on an eyedropper the way Meg does her kittens sometimes," Ruby said.

"That would be in an emergency," Scott replied, handing little Eleanor back to her Mamma as Emma did the same with baby Martin. Meg didn't miss the lingering wistful look she gave the little boy.

"Babies do best with their Mamma's," Emma said with a saccharine smile at Martin. Meg felt like gagging.

"Are you going to name him Nero or Khan?" Meg asked her sister the two names Ruby had narrowed down on her list of potential pet names.

"A-Actually, I thought about ... Darcy," Ruby replied meekly.

Meg was shocked. "Darcy - as in, _Mister Darcy_?!" she exclaimed. Meg loved the moony brooding Victorian novels of Emily Bronte and Jane Austen. _Pride and Prejudice_ was her absolute favorite.

But she had no idea ... Ruby?

Ruby grinned at her sister. "I've kinda been ... _inaccessible_ telepathically these past few days," she said mischievously, but in an apologetic way as well. "Thought I'd make the most of it. You have some interesting books, sis."

Meg punched her sister's arm. To her amazement, Ruby winced. "You've been looking thru my stuff?!" she said, outraged, shocked and ... somehow delighted all at the same time. This is what her crazy sister got up to when she was psychically inaccessible to Meg and the White Queen.

"Oh my God, you liked _Pride and Prejudice_?!" Meg sputtered. She didn't know what else to say.

"Well, I named my dog Mister Darcy," Ruby said, running her fingers thru her hair, embarrassed. If she hadn't had ruby-quartz skin, she would have been blushing.

Meg smiled at her sister. Of course, Ruby had left herself open for some major sisterly teasing which Meg would do mercilessly, but she also knew this was Ruby's way of apologizing for cutting her sister off psychically these past few days.

Of course, she hadn't told Meg exactly what she was hiding, but Meg decided it was definitely a start.


	6. The Forbidden City

**Hi all! Before jumping into Chapter VI (** ** _Chapter VI_** **!) I thought I'd present a super-helpful character key to aid readers because of the butt-load of characters and their origins! All characters listed below are either children or grandchildren of the X-Men. "Bold" signifies characters canon to the Marvel universe. Non-bold are my OC's. All are listed in order of appearance.**

 **Character Key:**

 ***Rachel Anne Summers (AKA Phoenix) - eldest daughter of Scott Summers (AKA Cyclops) and (only child of) Jean Grey-Summers.**

 ***Megan Katherine Summers - eldest daughter of Scott Summers (AKA Cyclops) and Emma Frost (AKA the White Queen).**

 *** Ruby Grace Summers - youngest daughter of Scott Summers (AKA Cyclops) and Emma Frost (AKA the White Queen).**

*Tom Warren Braddock Worthington IV (AKA Owl) - sole son of Warren Worthington III (AKA Angel) and Elizabeth Braddock Worthington (AKA Psylocke); twin brother of Rebecca "Becky" Braddock Worthington (AKA Falconer).

* Rebecca "Becky" Braddock Worthington (AKA Falconer) - sole daughter of Warren Worthington III (AKA Angel) and Elizabeth Braddock Worthington (AKA Psylocke); twin sister of Tom Warren Braddock Worthington IV (AKA Owl).

 ***Irene "Rennie" Theresa Cassidy Worthington (AKA Siryn) - only child of Moira McTaggert and Sean Cassidy (AKA Banshee).**

*Peregrine "Perri" Rebecca Worthington - eldest child (and sole daughter) of Tom Warren Worthington IV (AKA Owl) and Irene Theresa Worthington (AKA Siryn); granddaughter of Warren Worthington III (AKA Angel) and Elizabeth Braddock Worthington (AKA Psylocke).

*Griffin "Griff" Cassidy Worthington - eldest son of Tom Warren Worthington IV (AKA Owl) and Irene Theresa Cassidy Worthington (AKA Siryn); grandson of Warren Worthington III (AKA Angel) and Elizabeth "Betsy" Braddock Worthington (AKA Psylocke).

*Sparrowhawk "Sparrow" Warren Worthington V - youngest child of Tom Warren Worthington IV (AKA Owl) and Irene Theresa Worthington (AKA Siryn); grandson of Warren Worthington III (AKA Angel) and Elizabeth Braddock Worthington (AKA Psylocke).

 *** Talia Josephine "TJ" Wagner (AKA Nocturne) - the eldest daughter of Kurt Wagner (AKA Nightcrawler) and Wanda Maximoff (AKA the Scarlet Witch).**

* Oliza Jimaine Wagner - the fifth-born daughter of Kurt Wagner (AKA Nightcrawler) and Amanda Sefton Wagner.

 ***Daken James Munroe (AKA Blizzard) - youngest child and only son of Logan (AKA Wolverine) and Ororo Munroe (AKA Storm). Younger brother to Kendall Logan Munroe (AKA Torrent) only daughter and eldest child of Logan (AKA Wolverine) and Ororo Munroe (AKA Storm).**

 **Um'kay, got all that? This is another installment focusing on Warren Worthington (AKA Angel) and his grand-kiddos, but will also introduce some of Nightcrawler's babies! (Yus! Kurt is one of my favorite X-Men without a doubt.)**

 **By the way, Angel/Psylocke was always one of my favorite pairings. What do you think? Comment and let me know!**

 **Cheers, Maria**

 ** _Chapter VI: The Forbidden City_**

Twilight was, without a doubt, Tom Worthington's favorite time of the day. The sky - _his_ sky - was a deep shade of purple streaked with gold. Whatever clouds remained were tinged with pink. The vivid colors of the dying day made the young man, ironically, think of his grandfather - the man who had locked Tom away in a gilded cage when he learned to fly. Perhaps the open sky in all its resplendent glory reminded Tom of his adolescence locked away from it all. But it didn't create a bitter anger in Tom's heart, just a sad melancholy.

Tom had too sunny a disposition to really hold grudges. The old expression, "The best revenge is a life well-lived" seemed very true to him.

Tom had a fine life, in his opinion, and he lived each day to its fullest. Tom was technically heir to the vast Worthington fortune, but Tom felt he did not want it. He did not need it. He was so rich already; he lived such a fulfilling life - a beautiful wife, three amazing (if boisterous) kids and, something he had never dared hope for, being reunited with the father who was denied him just as the skies were in his youth.

So it was with fulfillment tinged with sadness - in the same way the welcoming night sky was tinged with the death of the day - that Tom looked upon the vast cool freedom of the open air.

The beautiful and the breath-taking feeling of freedom, however, wasn't the reason he cherished this time. The reason was his father. This was their father/son flying time. No matter how many times he flew with Warren, Tom never took it for granted. He still couldn't quite believe it was true. This man who had only (and barely that) been related to him in sparse stories was now flying wingtip-to-wingtip with his son. It instilled a great sense of excitement and pride in Tom.

Tom had been so shamed for his tawny-brown wings when he was a child. When he met the X-Men when he was 16, however, and his dad's boyhood companions, Tom had learned to take pride in his wings and his powers.

But he had never felt such warm gratitude for this gift he possessed, the gift of flight, than when he flew with his father and gloried in the gift they shared.

Warren was waiting for his son near the cave mouth. He smiled fondly when Tom grinned and shrugged to signify his rambunctious brood was finally asleep. Then the two spread their wings – Warren's 18-foot snowy wingspan and Tom's speckled tawny ones almost as wide – and took off.

Father and son glided in silence for a while, listening to the constant crashing of the waves on the rocks below. Tom, of course, could hear much more – the sounds of moths fluttering nearby, bat wings rustling far away in the mountain caves where the small mammals were waking up to hunt insects and the strong heartbeat of the man who was his father.

Warren, with his broad eagle-like wings, was built for soaring on warm drafts of air high in the sky. Tom's owlish wings were more rounded and completely silent, made for ducking and diving thru the night on unsuspecting prey. So Tom definitely had the advantage over his dad, especially with his added super-speed and sense of hearing.

He surpassed Warren with a mischievous smile. Warren chuckled a bit; Tom was speedy and silent, but a broader wingspan made his father the endurance flier. Tom would tire before his father.

Not that this was a competition. It was just a time when father and son could glide together thru the air, letting the wind slide thru their feathers and push them along like a giant invisible hand. " _Just_ ," thought Tom. " _Definitely not 'just._ '" He was flying with his father and no matter how often they did, it couldn't make up for the years they had not.

"Where are we flying tonight?" Warren asked his son, breaking the silence between them.

"Definitely not hunting," Tom said with a laugh.

Warren chuckled in agreement. "The little ones keeping you busy, eh?"

"Understatement Dad and they're not so little anymore," Tom replied. "Besides, you're doing the real work babysitting."

Warren grinned; Tom, with his dark eyes and dark hair, knew he resembled his mother more than his father. He was glad one of his sons had inherited their grandfather's handsome blonde hair and startling blue eyes. "Between Griff challenging me to blindfolded flying and Perri putting me in super-sonic diving contests, I am not idle, son. I am so exhausted at the end of the day, sometimes I think I'm getting old," Warren laughed.

Tom eyed his father is amusement, but also concern. Amusement because Warren looked so dashing, no one could ever consider him "old," Tom thought. Concern because he never wanted his offspring to inconvenience his dad. Warren had had such a hard life, he deserved a good easy one now, in Tom's opinion.

"Don't look at me that way, Tom," Warren replied. "You know every moment of every day with your 'chicks' is never enough for me. Besides, you feeling that way _will_ make me feel old."

Tom smiled. Though he only had met his dad in his late teens, Tom felt Warren knew him better than anyone else - even Irene.

A Stellar's sea-eagle passed them, gliding easily home from a day's hunting. Tom nodded gravely to the huge raptor and fellow predator as it tilted its dark-brown wings and sailed away in the direction of the seaside cliffs. A flock of grey bats flapped by; hunting or harming bats in any way was taboo, but the small mammals still gave the two winged men - powerful predators - a wary berth.

Warren tilted his wing toward the sea-spires rising up out of the open ocean to signal to his son where he wanted to land. Tom often noticed how his father communicated to him without words. Others might have noted this as aloofness, but Tom recognized it for what it was - it was how Warren Worthington communicated with those who knew him best and those he cherished most.

The sea-spires gleamed orange in the fading sunlight. Tom was secretly grateful for the rest. His owlish wings could have carried him all the way to Genosha, but it was a hard endurance flight. Tom was an airborne sprinter, but he couldn't keep up that blistering pace long. His wings were meant for lightening-fast dives, not marathons.

Warren grinned at Tom; he probably sensed his son's exhaustion. But he only good-naturedly said: "Hmph. Let an old man rest, son. You kids are always in a hurry."

Tom laughed at his codgerly speech and alighted beside his dad on one towering sea-spire. The sea-spires marked the protective force-field surrounding the island nation of Genosha. Animals and birds were free to fly or swim thru it unchecked, but nothing sentient got in or out of it without the Night Queen knowing.

The sea-spires resembled skinny mountains rising out of the ocean, each was the visage of Genosha's Royal Family carved on its face. Inside each statue roosted hundreds if not thousands of free-tail bats.

Tom and his father touched down on the head of Magda the Great (which the bats had vacated recently to hunt) and surveyed the sparkling city many wing-beats away. Genosha was powered primarily by psionic energy generated by its citizens. Light pulsed from the very walls of its homes and buildings clinging to its mountainous shores and its streets and pathways glowed with psionic power; the glittering city resembled an armful of stars cradled gently in the curve of its island volcano.

Tom's children (Griff especially) loved to come here and look and wonder at the glimmering island nation - the birthplace and heart of the domain of Magneto, Magnus, the feared and beloved leader of the _Gifted_ \- mutants as they had been known to Warren's generation. From here, Warren and even Tom's sharp eyes could make out the colossal statue of Magneto at the city's heart. It pointed to the heavens - leading Genosha's people towards their glorious future.

Tom had been there a few times, but he now viewed the wondrous place as nothing more than a curiosity for his children; all he needed lay in his own parcel of territory across the sea.

Still, when he came here he sometimes wondered about his boyhood friend Nocturne and smiled in a sentimental way when he thought how they had fought when they first met. Talia Wagner, better known as Nocturne to others, was a beautiful young woman with all the capabilities and instincts of a bat. That, as well as her reserved thoughtful personality that clashed with his own carefree one, had initially put her at odds with Tom, who was so much like an owl, a bat's natural foe.

Pondering this made Tom nostalgic for his old rag-tag band of friends - the children of the X-Men: Nocturne as well as Torrent, Dark Beast, Xavier and Phoenix - and the time he had fled his grandfather's estate and learned to fight using his super powers and take pride in his gifts, under the tutelage of the famed X-Men Shadowcat, Iceman and Wolverine.

This also reminded him of his twin sister, Rebecca, who was called Falconer for her connection with the birds (especially raptors) and that tinged these happy memories with sadness just as the dusky sky was tinted with the colors of the dying day.

"You know, I remember the great human cities and when they were powered by fossil fuels, hydroelectric power and atomic energy," Warren murmured, breaking into Tom's memories.

"Well, gee, Grandpa, I remember that too, y'know," Tom replied mischievously.

Warren's huge white wing shot out and knocked his son off the sea-spire. When Tom didn't reappear circling the spire, Warren poked his head over the statue edge, concerned.

"Heya, Grandpa!"

Warren jumped a bit. Tom was hanging upside-down underneath the ledge his father was perched on. He grinned; there was nothing quite like getting a rise out of an X-Man.

Warren laughed. "Sometimes I can't tell if you're a bird or a bat."

"Isn't it obvious? I'm your son!" Tom responded. He righted himself, grinning at his dad. No matter how old he got or how many kids he fathered, Tom Worthington would always be the goofball.

"Thank God for that," Warren chuckled. "You always act this way when we come out here ... Thinking about Talia?"

"She was pretty cool ... for a bat," Tom added with a grin. "She practically taught me how to use my echolocation powers and other ... _batty_ things."

"She's a fine teacher, a fine leader," Warren commented thoughtfully.

"Nocturne's way more than that," Tom replied. "She was one of the best friends I've ever had. I've only ever met a few people more selfless and kind."

"She definitely takes after her father in that respect," Warren nodded. "Nightcrawler was called 'demon' by more than a few people, but I think the more accurate description of such a kind generous man would be -"

"Angel?" Tom suggested, smirking at his dad, calling Warren by his codename he used with the X-Men.

"I have been a lot of things, but never that ..." Warren said seriously and Tom's smile faded. It deeply disturbed him when his father talked this way. "All of the X-Men have done good things ... and very bad things."

Tom idolized his father and found it hard to believe Warren Worthington had done anything but good deeds, but Tom knew indeed he had. It deeply troubled the young man. How could he reconcile this loving father and grandfather who wouldn't even kill a rabbit with a man who had caused such great harm to others?

Tom's thoughts drifted to the other X-Men, his father's comrades. Tom had fought alongside the X-Men and wondered about them often. Now, they had scattered to the winds, it seemed, living their own lives and raising their own families. His favorite - aside from his father, of course - was Nightcrawler, Talia's father. Dashing and brave, X-Man Kurt Wagner had shared a special bond with Tom and his twin sister, Becky, and had been a close friend and ally of Psylocke, their mother.

The last Tom had heard, Kurt was living on "Night Island," a smaller territory in Genosha's island chain, with his massive tribe of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

"Kurt and I are very similar," Tom spoke up. He usually wasn't so reflective - his busy life prevented that - but it was nice to be with his dad, the man he loved and admired most. "He told me about being locked away in a cage, treated like a freak, same as I was. Though Grandfather was never cruel; he gave me all I needed."

Warren looked pensive, a scowl on his face. Tom sometimes felt fondness for his grandfather; the man had raised him and treated him well, though he held his grandson prisoner. Warren felt no such affection for the man who was his father. "All except the skies?" Warren asked, his voice cold. "A cage is a cage, son." Warren spread his powerful wings and beat the air with them, something he did to express anger or agitation, like an eagle claiming its territory.

Tom knew what those mighty wings could do. Once Sparrow had made an awkward landing in a copse on the home island. A wolf there thought to make a meal of the boy; what the wolf didn't know was Sparrow's grandfather was hovering nearby and the feathers on Warren's wings were sharper than swords. The feathers could detach and stab an opponent thru the heart - which is exactly what Angel had done to the wolf threatening his grandson.

It was the last time Warren had taken a life. Tom knew his father detested killing things, because there was a time when Warren killed and couldn't control what he was doing. A time when Apocalypse, the X-Men's most dire foe, had controlled his mind.

It was the reason Warren valued freedom - and ensuring that freedom for his family - above all else.

Tom could tell the powerful winged man was thinking of that when he said: "Cages come in many forms, Tom - bars, psychological control, even the sky." When his son shot him a puzzled look, he continued.

"Actually ..." said Warren, rubbing his neck. "That's why I wanted to fly out here tonight."

"Not to freeze our asses off?" Tom quipped at an attempt at levity.

Warren smiled again; Tom had that effect on him and just about everyone else. It was hard to be moody or brooding with goofy Owl around. "No, so that Griff couldn't listen in on our conversation," Warren said.

"Griff?" Tom tilted his head like an inquisitive owl. He could turn his head almost completely around, just like an owl could.

"You know Griff could hear a conversation almost a mile away, son," Warren explained.

Tom sighed impatiently. "Yes, I am his father, remember? I mean, why shouldn't he be eavesdropping?"

Warren shrugged. It took a bit for Tom to catch on. He wasn't exactly the thinker of the family. Realization dawning on the young man's face was like watching the sunrise. Tom was also not exactly good at hiding things either, Warren thought, smirking.

"Ooooh, the little buggar's been after _you_ now and he knew _I_ couldn't say no to you, isn't that it, Dad?" Tom demanded.

"That you can't say 'no' to me?" Warren asked, lounging his shoulder up against the crest of Magda the Great's crown.

Tom tried to knock his dad off with his wingtip the same way Warren had done to him earlier, but Angel dodged and sent his son plummeting forward into space.

"Hey!" Tom snapped, bobbing back up, his wings flapping.

"Couldn't resist ..." Warren replied with a grin.

"But that's it, isn't it?" Tom asked. "I _told_ the little scamp not to bother you -"

"He wasn't," Warren said in a voice that left no room for argument. Tom settled himself down thoughtfully next to his dad. He knew when Warren spoke in that tone, he had something important to say and Tom, for all his goofiness, knew when to listen attentively.

"I know Griff's been nagging you and Rennie about going to Genosha," Warren said. How he knew, Tom didn't ask. He knew his dad just knew. That's the way he was with the kids; if something was bothering one of his "chicks," Angel was the first to know. "Have you considered letting him?"

Tom was frankly surprised. Warren seemed to love his life living with his son and family, but he rarely got involved in family politics. Despite an overachieving sister, Griffin was the adventurer of the family and he longed to explore beyond the home island - something that worried Tom no end.

Tom sighed. "Rennie has," he said irritably. Irene seemed to think her boys needed exposure to the outside world. For reasons Tom couldn't understand his mate wanted to shelter Perri from everything around the girl. "What I don't understand is why Griff would ever want to leave ... He has everything he needs at home: food, family, a place to fly."

Warren nodded at his son, his expression thoughtful. "Have you ever thought your Grandfather might have asked himself that about _you_?"

Tom's face flushed with shock, anger and indignation, but, unlike many children, the young man knew to patiently listen to his father when he disagreed with him. Angel was very wise.

"Right now, Griffin is in a cage." Warren raised his hand when Tom opened his mouth to protest. "It's a nice cage with space and resources, sort of like the aviary my father placed you in when you were a boy. A cage doesn't have to be cold and cruel like the one Kurt occupied to be a cage. And Griff is a bird at heart - so he can't be happy being restrained.

"He longs for pure boundless freedom," Warren added. "Just as you did, son."

Tom was amazed. His dad had just put into words something he had been struggling to understand since Griffin had learned to fly. Peregrine was the show-off, the precocious, talented child of the family, but Griff was always pushing the boundaries set by his parents. He was the one who flew the farthest from the home island towards the sea. His was a restless spirit.

"He definitely wants to explore ..." Tom said grudgingly. He knew his father was right, but it hurt his pride to admit it.

"It's more than that and the whole problem doesn't just concern Griffin," Warren said. At Tom's puzzled expression he explained: "Peregrine caused a telekinetic _storm_ today, son. She's more powerful now than your mother was at twice her age. Have you considered how you're going to deal with that? How you're going to instruct her in extreme telekinesis?"

"She's way more powerful than I ever was ..." Tom said faintly, beginning to look overwhelmed. How simple his life had seemed when all he had to worry about was catching rats for his babies and keeping them from falling in the sea full of sharks.

"She has power; what she _needs_ is control," Warren stated. "In the same way Griffin needs freedom."

Tom gazed at his father. Any other son might have argued with his dad, but Tom knew just by Warren getting involved in this family dispute that he meant every word he said - Angel did not give idle advice. If he thought this unimportant, he wouldn't have gotten involved.

"Professor Charles Xavier taught you to control your powers," Tom murmured.

A sad smile tugged at Warren's lips. "Yes. And Scott and Hank and Jean and Bobby," he replied, listing off his best friends - the very first X-Men - who were almost as close as siblings to Angel. "Professor X isn't around anymore, but your solution may lie across the ocean, son."

Tom raised his head to follow Warren's gaze toward the sparkling city of Genosha. "Talia?" he asked his dad.

"No one I know knows more about creating telekinetic force fields. She's kept Genosha safe in her own since she began her reign here as Queen," Warren explained. "And Griff's echolocation powers are eerily similar to her own."

Tom smiled. "Nobody has ears like Tally's. Not even Griff."

"Perri's been a big fish in a small pond for so long," Warren murmured. "She's fulfilled the limits set by herself, let her be challenged by another teacher - other peers. I think she would flourish in a challenge.

"Your mother was that way. She is very similar ..."

"I know," Tom said, smiling. "I say it every day. Mom is exactly like Peregrine -"

"Actually, I was referring to your youngest," Warren replied.

Tom's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Sparrow?"

Warren chuckled. "You have Betsy's memories of all her brave deeds, but maybe what you don't understand was her fear and self-doubt. Beautiful Elizabeth ..." he said softly. "She was often afraid." Warren faced his son, his blue eyes shining. "But she faced obstacles and challenges although she _knew_ the danger and her own shortcomings; _that_ is what made her so brave, my son. That is why she reminds me so very much of Sparrowhawk."

It was true. Psylocke's memories were inside Tom's mind, but no one knew her like her own dear Warren, her beloved mate.

"It's so strange ..." Tom murmured. "I-I've got Mom's memories, b-but I feel like I could never truly know her no matter what I do."

Warren clapped his hand on his son's shoulder. "Look at your little chicks, Tom. Betsy's spirit is in every one of them; you don't have to look any further to see your mother. Perri's fierceness. Griff's thirst for exploration. Sparrowhawk's perceptiveness ... She's all there."

Tom pulled his dad in a hug; he felt Warren stiffen in surprise, not because this was awkward, but because Angel felt amazed by it every time it happened, in the same way Tom felt when flying with his dad.

"I still have a lot to learn, Dad," Tom said. "But I believe you and Mom are willing to teach me - thru my chicks!"

Warren laughed in reply.

As Tom embraced his father, he noticed the night air _shimmering_ around them, like ripples on a disturbed pond. Then the night sky surrounding them seemed to warp inward in a strange way like melting plastic. Tom knew he wasn't actually seeing these things with his eyes - his echolocation was sending his brain images created by an extreme amount of sound; usually Tom had to cry out and bounce sound off of an object to get a mental picture of it, but in an unusual case in which so much high-pitched sound was produced ... Tom not "seeing" it in his mind's eye would be like not seeing a huge colorful marching band with his regular eyes.

"Tom, what's up?" Warren growled. Warren had the eyesight of an eagle, but his ears were no more or less keen than anyone else's - well anyone else except Griffin and Tom.

Tom knew, however, his father had razor-sharp instincts. He could sense some sort of danger without seeing it.

Tom shut his eyes. Like Griff, he could concentrate on sound better that way. The sound causing the air to ripple invaded his mind and, thru his echolocation, painted a picture in his mind - amber eyes burning in a darkened palace full of mosaics and tapestries, bats disturbed from their slumber angrily circling a high-ceilinged room, silver-blue falcon wings thrashing in fear.

Those images, however, were not as terrifying as the sounds Tom heard now - a high-pitched scream that caused the very air to bend and a heartbeat hammering in fear. Tom knew that scream and he knew that heartbeat ...

They belonged to his old friend Talia and to his little daughter Perri respectively.

Tom's eyes shot open in terror.

"Perri's in danger, Dad!" he whispered.

Tom shot off faster than a bullet towards Genosha; though his wings would take him there in seconds, the sprint would exhaust the man too much to fight when he arrived. He needed backup. Warren tailed him, cursing his son's impulsiveness. Warren was a fast flier, but nothing rivaled his son's speed. He only prayed he'd get to Tom's destination in time to defend him.

And Warren, who detested killing anything, felt blinding rage as he hurtled across the sea towards Genosha. He only hoped he could get there in time to tear apart whatever had threatened his granddaughter.


	7. The Night Queen - Part 1

**Hola, amigos! Here is another chapter focusing on the grand-kiddos of Angel/Archangel and the kiddos of Nightcrawler. Nightcrawler is one of my favs from the X-Men. (Top 5 easily!) Who is your favorite?**

 **Warren's son and grandchildren are my original characters; all others belong to Marvel.**

 **I also do not own the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Geez, I wish I did!**

 **Please read & review!**

 **Cheers, Maria**

 ** _Chapter VII: The Night Queen – Part 1._**

 ** _"_** ** _You don't know my mind; you don't know my kind. Dark necessities are part of my design."_**

 ** _-The Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Dark Necessities"_**

Griffin Worthington was a night owl, metaphorically and, in some ways, literally. His siblings were very much diurnal creatures. Griff lay tossing and turning amongst his mum and brother and sister who were all sleeping soundly. Sparrow was drooling; Irene was snoring softly and Peregrine was smiling in her sleep, probably dreaming of making a sweet dive so fast it shattered stones.

But Griffin was the son of Tom Worthington, AKA Owl, and Griff had inherited every ounce of his Da's owlish capabilities and urges. As his family slumbered in the comfy nest of blankets and pillows in the home cave, Griff laid awake, wide green eyes watching the night skies beyond the cave mouth. His ears, however, painted a picture in his mind of the nocturnal world. It thrummed with life. Griff could hear moth wings pattering outside. The cheeky little bastards were fluttering around just a few wing-beats from the Worthington aerie, as if they knew a powerful night predator – Griff – was just inside the cave.

They were taunting the boy.

For Griff looked very much like a human boy from the neck up; from the neck down he looked very much like the mighty creature for which he was named. His body was covered in rusty-red feathers and his fingers and toes were tipped in ferocious claws. Griffin's ears and wings, however, were like an owl's – detecting the slightest noise, but not making a sound respectively.

He could hear other enticing sounds beyond his family's window to the outside world. Bats. Griffin's "white whale."

Though they looked like human children in many ways, Griffin and his siblings were allowed to eat any prey they could catch – all except bats.

Bats were taboo. Not that catching them would be easy, Griff thought, even for a seasoned predator, like his father. Bats were tricky. Griff used echolocation primarily to hunt and fly, but bats did too. And bats could shoot sound at their opponents, scrambling their enemies' echolocation, making it appear in a hunter's mind's eye that they were suddenly chasing dozens of bats, not just one target. For someone who hunted primarily thru sound, it sounded like a nightmare.

Bats had other tricks too. They flew in flocks which made them seem easy targets. How could you not catch a bat when you're charging into a venerable _wall_ of them? But just as a predator got close enough to snatch one, the flock would change direction, every bat turning at the same time as if choreographed, leaving the hunter with empty claws – and an empty stomach.

Tom had hunted bats until the Law had been enacted and the small winged mammals became forbidden food. He had told Griff just how sneaky they could be – but, deep down, Griffin wanted to try to catch one. Just once.

The sound that really held his attention tonight, however, was miles away – so far away across the ocean even Griff's keen ears could barely hear it. It was the wild sounds of _Carnival_ .

Griff sighed wistfully. His father and mother had witnessed the spectacle of Carnival several times. His big sister Perri had seen it once. His little brother Sparrow, like Griff, never had, but none of them seemed to care for it.

"A bunch of lights and noise and crazy people?" Perri had said to Griff when he begged her to tell him about Carnival. "What's the big deal, bro?"

"That's exactly it!" Griff had replied. Bright vibrant colors and lights painting the night, the clash of colorful voices and music, the singing and dancing of revelers in crazy costume – that seemed the life meant for Griffin.

His parents and siblings seemed content with their rusticated life, the gentle grey-greens and pastel blues, the muted colors of the rocks and sea and sheep-folds of the home island. Griff, however, thirsted for the vivid blood-red of the sunset to call in the wild night full of revelry and life and the bright pink dawn to signal a day of rest before another night of partying and insane fun.

He glanced down disdainfully at his snoring siblings. How could Perri with her extreme speed and telekinetic powers be content with this mundane life? The answer was actually easy – on the home island, she was the mightiest hunter in the sky. No challenge. No failure. Griff thought his sister's poor ego couldn't handle failure in any form. What a waste, he thought with a sniff.

And Sparrow … God, he was even worse. Griff's baby brother was such a pushover, little bunnies didn't even snicker behind his back – they laughed in his face. This easy life wasn't just all that would suit Sparrow; it was probably all he could handle.

"Argh, lie still, Griff," Perri mumbled crossly, half-asleep. Griff's fluffy bulk sat squarely on her head.

"Let's sneak out of the aerie, Perri," he whispered. "Da and Gran'pa are off bonding; a flying shark wouldn't wake Mum! And Sparrow …" Griff made a flippant gesture with his wingtip. Sparrow couldn't follow – he was such a weak flier – and his older siblings could certainly bully him into keeping mum.

"Go 'way, Griff," Peregrine murmured sleepily, turning over and snuggling closer to their mother and Sparrow.

Well, he would … but the truth was he didn't want to be alone. Yeah, it was a scaredy thing to admit, but the first rule of flying had been hammered into the siblings by their Mum and Da: "Always fly with a buddy." Besides, what was the fun in flying alone?

Griff was the closest to a challenge Perri could get on the home island; Griff loved to one-up his show-off sister with his superior sense of hearing and echolocation.

To his mind, the overachieving Perri needed someone to teach her humility.

"I want to go to Genosha …" he murmured. It was his dream. His rare glimpses of the splendid city powered by the mental power of its citizens filled the boy with awe. If it were up to his Da Griff would never go.

But now … his Gran'pa Warren knew of Griffin's wish and the cunning Griffin knew better than anyone that Warren Worthington could deny his grandchildren nothing.

Perri didn't even crack open an eye. "Carnival is stupid and pointless, brother. Someday when you see it, you'll understand."

Griff scowled at her. God, she had last seen Carnival when she was like what -? Three? But she acted like she knew all about it. Perri was such an annoying sister with her condescending attitude.

Suddenly Griff had an idea. It was a devilish one. A terrible one, but it made him smile when he thought how his Mum would clutch her pearls if she found out or how his easygoing Da would be shocked. Even his grandpa, who adored all three children, would be very angry.

"Oh, I'm not interested in Carnival, actually," he said casually. "What I really want to do is catch a bat."

Perri's reaction itself was almost enough to satisfy him. Her violet eyes, which looked almost black in the dark aerie, flew open. She was suddenly wide awake. " _Bat_?!" she croaked. The subject was so taboo the siblings didn't even discuss it among themselves. They had all been told what would happen if they ever broke the Law.

"You're stupid … y-you're serious?" Perri gasped. "You know what will happen, don't you?" she hissed, whispering so low, as if scared the ferocious Night Queen could hear her discussing such a taboo subject. "Even _you_ aren't that much of an idiot, Griff!"

Griff chuckled, though he was miffed at her "idiot" comment. "You mean how I'll burst into flames or just vanish? _Poof_! Those are tales to make chicks behave, sis," he replied. He spoke with swagger, and he had done it to yank her chain, but now he was curious … his parents had only ever said not to, but did he know of anyone personally who had been punished for breaking the Law?

No. And how could the Night Queen watch everyone all the time? Or _hear_ everyone all the time? Tom had told the children that she had hearing sharper than his own, but still – even Tom couldn't hear something more than a mile away. How powerful _was_ this Night Queen exactly? The answers were either very or exaggerated.

Right now, Griffin was leaning toward exaggerated.

Perri wasn't. Sitting up in the nest, staring at her brother with huge eyes and her hair sticking out in all directions, she looked like a scared baby chick.

"Geeee, sis," Griff said, rolling his eyes with a smirk. "I never thought you'd be a benchwarmer like _that_ chump." He jerked his chin at a snoring Sparrow. "I'll let you know how the bat tastes." He tied on his blindfold and took a running leap off the ledge at the cave mouth and into the welcome night sky.

He smiled when he heard Perri's powerful wings pumping behind him. "You are _not_ serious, Griff!" she hissed at his shoulder.

"Aww, sis, you doubt my word?" he said. "Guess I'll have to prove it."

"You're sick!" she snapped, sounding desperate. Griff could sense Perri was torn between calling his bluff and going home or tailing her brother to watch out for him. Finally, she paused and shouted: "You won't do it! I don't believe you! _Chickeeeeen_!" Her screams dwindled as Griff sped away into the night.

 _She'll come_ … Griff thought.

He hoped.

 **###**

Perri watched her brother's form as it was swallowed up by the night sky. _Not even you're that much of an idiot!_ The words she had hissed at Griff echoed in her head. But it was _Griffin Cassidy Worthington_ she was talking about … Peregrine could dive at speeds fast enough to cause sonic booms, but Griff was the dare-devil of the family.

Griff had lived his entire life in his sister's shadow, but instead of being resentful and scrambling for their parents' attention the way a second-born would usually do, Griffin viewed his place in the family hierarchy as an asset. Perri was all flash, he said; she got all the attention – leaving her little brother Griff to experiment and explore new methods of travel, new ways of thinking, new venues of mischief.

Perri had met her mum's parents when she was very small – barely three-years-old; she could barely remember Gran'pa Sean Cassidy and Gra'ma Moira MacTaggert. All she remembered of them was how much her Mum Irene had resembled Gran'pa Sean in looks, gingery and green-eyed, and Gra'ma Moira in personality, gentle and thoughtful. The Cassidy temperament all came out in Griff, however, Gran'pa Warren would say darkly. One reason Irene's parents didn't come around the Worthington family was Warren and Sean's infamous rivalry. They were renowned enemies.

It was true, however, Irene confirmed. If a rule was made, Griff would break it. If a boundary was set, Griff would test it. If a proclamation was handed down, Griff would question it. Griffin Worthington was a born rebel.

And now he had stated he was about to break the biggest rule of all – even _thinking_ about it made Perri shiver. And hadn't her Da said the Night Queen had hearing so keen she could hear your thoughts? Peregrine might have scoffed at this if she didn't know for a fact it was true. Griffin didn't believe it because he hadn't seen – he'd never met the Night Queen as his sister had.

If Griff even tried to go thru with this, there could be horrific repercussions.

Perri was used to going fast, talking fast and thinking fast – perhaps her hardest obstacle was slowing down and thinking things thru, especially now when time was of the essence.

"Jus' slow down, darlin'. Don't go off makin' rash decisions in a mad rush," Irene would rebuke her eldest child. But what did her Mum expect? Perri was practically a falcon; speed was what she lived for.

To her credit, Perri did try to slow down and think rationally in a tight situation, but her mind hopped nervously from thought to thought. _OK, Griff wouldn't take this dare … Would he_ ? she pondered. Well, there had never been a dare he _hadn't_ taken. He had eaten a live crawfish when he was seven; when he was ten, he had accepted Perri's dare to fly low over the open ocean where the great white sharks were out hunting sea lion pups. He had lost several feathers to that venture and Irene had lost several years off of her life. It was then Perri had stopped putting Griff up to dares. It was then he had started daring himself to do the impossible.

Her thoughts changed direction with the lightning-fast turn of a falcon. _What would the Night Queen do to Griff … To me?_ That final thought was selfish, but true. By understanding her brother's intentions, Perri was technically abetting a crime. That also put her entire family in danger – if they found out.

Which they wouldn't, Perri thought stoutly, her violet eyes narrowing to slits. She recalled what her father had told her when she was first learning to fly: once you commit to a dive, see it thru. Perri had made her decision.

She had to stop her brother.

 **###**

Griff's thoughts were hardly on his sister, well, once he knew she was indeed following him. Griff smirked – he knew Peregrine would never allow him to do a dare alone. He wasn't sure if this was genuine sisterly care or the fact some glory might _not_ come to Perri. Knowing Peregrime, he assumed the latter. Perri loved to be the center of attention. _Well, let her_ , Griff thought. The spotlight shining on his sis had saved Griffin plenty of trouble. More leeway to get away with his own plans.

Perri also made a handy patsy. She was so used to being ahead of everyone, she seldom watched her back. So Griff sometimes pegged the blame for his ventures squarely on his sister.

Griffin flew on completely silent wings; not even his father's keen ears could detect Griff in flight. The boy was within sight of the sea-spires and, beyond that, Genosha sparkling and loud with celebration. Carnival was in full-swing.

 _Later_ , he thought. Like all his family except his grandpa, Griff wasn't much of an endurance flier. He needed a rest – especially before pulling off this stunt.

Silent russet wings carried the boy up to his perch on the sea-spire resembling the Scarlet Witch, Magneto's daughter and the Night Queen's mother. Like her daughter, the Scarlet Witch had been a beautiful and insanely powerful woman. Griff wondered what his powers could truly do when he was allowed to fly away from the home island for good and use them for other things besides hunting tiger moths. His powers of echolocation were very similar to the Night Queen's, Tom had told his eldest son. Gran'pa Warren had been dropping hints that perhaps Griffin could study under the powerful Queen which excited his eldest grandson no end.

Well, what could stop _Griff_ from becoming more powerful than the ruler of Genosha, Magneto's mighty heir, especially if Griffin were to become her apprentice, learning all the secrets of her craft?

Griff's heartbeat steadied and his breathing became more regular and less labored as he rested and thought these thoughts. It was twilight now as he removed his blindfold and looked around. The last traces of sunset streaking the sky were fading. _Yes_! he thought excitedly as he watched first two then ten then a dozen then a hundred bats explode from the hidden caves inside each of the sea-spires. The free-tail bats blackened the indigo sky with their sheer numbers – thousands if not millions of bats spun thru the air, turning and diving in a graceful ballet.

Griffin heard a collective cheer rise up from the island nation of Genosha, accompanied by gongs banging, instruments playing and people singing as the massive black tide of bats filled the sky and began circling the sea-spires surrounding the island volcano.

Bats were sacred here. They were the crest of the mighty Night Queen. It went deeper than that, however, back to the distant days when humans ruled the Earth. The migratory bats were a sign of the changing seasons and the silly human beings believed the seasons could not change without the little flying rats, Griffin thought disdainfully.

The bats departed from here at the end of Carnival and traveled North millions of wing-beats to their nursery caves where they raised their kits. When autumn approached the Northern-lands again, the free-tail bats would return again as they had for millennia.

The humans were all gone from this and most places on the Earth, but traditions that run that deep die hard. Carnival marked the beginning of the bats' journey and the beginning of spring.

… And it was the reason killing bats were taboo.

" _Griffin_!" he heard his sister hiss in outrage. Griffin turned his head almost completely around (another owlish trait he had inherited from Tom) to see Peregrine winging her way angrily towards his perch. Right on time, as usual. Of course, she could have got here faster if her brain worked as swiftly as her wings, he thought with a smirk.

"Watch me, sis!" he replied in a jovial way and fell headlong off the sea-spire. He hurtled towards the black crashing sea below. Griffin usually didn't employ this hunting technique; the headlong dive was Perri's specialty. Griff, like an owl, preferred a silent ambush. But he would need to approach this hunt differently in order to pull it off – and without his trusty blindfold.

Bats, like Griff, flew depending on sound, not sight.

By switching things up for himself, he was for his quarry as well.

As he fell, he hit the inevitable wall of flying bats which changed direction effortlessly to avoid him. Perfect. Step One of his Plan: Keep your eye on the prize. Griff wasn't a reckless hothead like his sister; he always had a Plan. He didn't attempt to chase the hoard. His eye was on a small female which flew a just a few wing-beats behind the flock. He honed in on his target.

The frightened young female bat shot sound at Griffin, scrambling his echolocation. But he wasn't just listening to his target the way he usually would; both his eyes were trained on her. Step Two: Beat them at their own game. Griffin sang out sound the way his Mum would and hit the young bat with a barrage of sound-images. To the confused bat, relying almost completely on echolocation, her pursuer was now suddenly all around her. She fluttered like a butterfly in bewilderment.

Griff smiled. Step Three: Close the deal. Do it cleanly. He swooped in on the helpless animal, razor talons bared like a hungry owl. His claws closed over the little bat, ready to rip it apart …

Then he stopped, hovering in the air. The free-tail bat fluttered desperately in the cage made by his closed claws. Griff swelled with pride. He had done it! The most elusive prey in the sky and _he_ had caught it! Not Peregrine. Him.

"Griffin, _what the HELL_?!" Perri hissed as she approached him. But there wasn't just shock and outrage in her slanted purple eyes, there was amazement and awe there too. She could barely believe Griffin had done it. Well, disobeyed the strictest rule set before them – she could believe that. But that he had actually _caught_ a bat. Only their father had ever done that!

Griff basked in her awe – short-lived as it was.

"Griffin, what the hell have you done?!" Perri snarled, awe and admiration at his prowess gone. All that remained was horror at what he had dared do.

"Jealous, sis?" he gloated. "Jealous _I_ caught the fastest prey in the sky? Not you? Not Peregrine Worthington? Not the fastest living thing after Da?"

"Griff, I mean it!" she said thru gritted teeth. "What you did puts us in danger! All of us! You, me, all our family!"

"What?" Griff drawled. "Kill a bat? The Night Queen's beloved little pet? _Say it_ , Perri – Say: Griffin did the unthinkable, the impossible!"

Perri paled in terror at the very mention of the crime. " _Gimme_ !" she hissed angrily, lunging at her brother. Of course, she was faster, but when Griff opened his claws the little bat was indeed not dead, just stunned and still.

Perri's horrified and then livid reaction was very much worth everything, he thought … until he noticed her sudden movement had knocked the small creature from his hand. The bat, still in shock, went plummeting down like a stone.

Perri's reflexes, as sharp as ever, kicked in and she dove after the little animal. But so great was her fear and desperation that she gripped the bat too tightly when she caught it in less than a second.

She had broken its back.

Peregrine stared down in terror at the tiny broken body in her trembling hand then glanced up at her brother's equally horrified gaze. " _God_!" she gasped before the very night sky seemed to bend inward in a surreal way and the young girl vanished like a puff of smoke.

"Perri!" Griffin screamed. This was not part of the Plan.


	8. Waffles and Winter Visitors

**Howdy, everyone, and apologies for the hiatus. Don't Internet problems stink?**

 **All these characters belong to Marvel. I am switching back to Meg and Ruby Summers POV for the next three chapters. Hope ya enjoy!**

 **Please read & comment, friends!**

 ** _Chapter VIII: Waffles & Winter Visitors_**

Meg awoke from the first deep, natural sleep she had had since the telepathic storm. She stretched luxuriously when she realized the severe migraines that plagued her in the aftermath of her psychic storm were gone. She flipped the covers off of herself and noticed a warm patch on her bed which Ruby had recently vacated; her sister was off on a morning run with their dad, Meg assumed. Like their father, Ruby was such a morning person.

Yes, Meg could feel her sister's adrenaline rush thru the family psychic-link. She smiled and shook her head, glad to have her sister's feelings accessible again - Well, for the most part. Meg still sensed her sister had a secret that she refused to share with anyone, even Megan. And now that she was completely well again, Meg was determined to find out what that secret was.

Meg's room was chilly and she happily stretched her toes, luxuriating in the feeling that relief from mental pain brought her. She slipped on her fuzzy blue slippers and slid a bit on the floor in excitement on the way out of her room.

 _Winter Break was here!_

Meg padded downstairs to find the kitchen empty. Yep. Scott and Ruby were out running in the frosty morning. Headmistress Frost very much did _not_ do mornings. Uncle Hank had probably worked all night in his lab. He had been doing that a lot lately, Meg realized. With the School students absent on Winter Break, Hank would work thru the night and sleep most of the day.

Meg grabbed a large mixing bowl and scooped flour, eggs, butter, milk and vanilla extract inside it. As she set the ingredients on the counter, she admired how the rising sun's rays melted the crisp frost that covered every surface outdoors. The School boathouse where the Summers family lived faced the lake which sparkled like diamonds.

"Mmm ... diamonds," Emma Frost murmured as she headed downstairs in a long white robe. "Very nice to feel good vibes coming from that head of yours, Miss Summers."

Emma gave her eldest daughter a smile which Meg returned gleefully. It had to be something great to coax a smile out of the White Queen this early in the morning.

"I'll have coffee ready in a moment," Meg replied.

Her mother seated herself on the kitchen island counter. "Thank the gods for a daughter like you to comfort me in my old age," Emma said as Meg handed her a steaming mug. "You see my husband has run off with a younger woman."

"Funny, Mom," Meg replied as she enthusiastically stirred the the contents in the mixing bowl and poured it in the steaming waffle iron. "Dad and Ruby will be hungry after their morning run."

"You are such a good _sister_ ," Emma commented between sips.

There was something about the way her mom said "sister" that got Meg's attention. Oddly enough, it reminded the girl of the morning the family had visited Oliza and Ruby picked out her puppy - the day Meg suspected her parents were hiding something.

Meg had been telepathically told off for trying to tap deeper into her mom's emotions then, so she didn't attempt to pry now. But suddenly, Emma took her daughter's hand in her own.

"Darling child, you will be 15 years old in two weeks. Do you know what that means?"

"Um, I'll get my learner's permit?" Meg replied airily because she was a bit startled by her mom's demonstrativeness. Emma was a good mother, but she usually didn't show affection in this way.

"Please do not remind me of that, Megan," Emma said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "What I mean is you're growing up; are you prepared for that?"

 _Ooooh, this_ ... Meg thought, struggling not to roll her eyes. She had been wondering when her mom would corner her and force her into this conversation.

"Well, yes," Meg said. "I think so. We went bra-shopping, Mom, and I know where Ruby keeps her tampons," she added, though she flushed to say it. That was the worst, in Meg's opinion. Ruby got her period last year. Megan was the older sister, dammit! It just wasn't fair.

Emma chuckled. "That will certainly come, my love. What I meant is: are you prepared for what could come of your ... development?"

Meg blushed. "I-If you mean I would like a boyfriend, I'm not interested, Mom."

Well, that wasn't entirely true. There was Howard Najeer, the treasurer of the School's Small Mammals Domestication Clubs. Barring their initially awkward meeting, she and Howard had gotten along famously - he crossbreeding Nigerian Pygmy goats with Angora goats to get a small but sturdy mammal used for milk and fiber.

But was Howard _boyfriend_ material? As in not just a boy who is a good friend? But a romantic partner? Someone Meg could ... kiss? No. No. No. No. Definitely not. Meg couldn't imagine doing that with _anyone_.

She caught her mother smiling at her in a sly way and Meg's face burned when she realized her thoughts were extremely open to Emma.

"You needn't worry, Mom," she said, trying to sound casual. "You know Ruby gets all the attention from boys." ( _Not that she notices_ , Meg thought humorously.) "Besides, Dad would incinerate anyone who made a move - if you didn't kill the poor boy first," Meg added quickly, wanting to change the subject.

"Not entirely true, my dear," Emma countered. "You have more than a few admirers besides Mister Najeer which isn't surprising." (Meg's face was on fire.)

"As for your father, yes, he would incinerate whatever young man made his feelings known to either you or your sister which could be the reason neither you nor Ruby are quite aware of just how many admirers you have," Emma said with a smile. "As for _me_ , if a man ever made you anything less than happy, I would make his worst nightmares come true and then force him to live with them," Emma said, only half-joking. "When I imagine someone breaking your heart ..." Emma trailed off, her blue eyes hard as flint. "Death would be too kind for him."

Meg knew this wasn't an empty threat coming from the White Queen.

Megan shrugged good-naturedly: "Well, I guess I'm covered then. That's why I have you guys, I guess."

Emma sipped her coffee. "You won't always," she said sadly. Emma stared down into her mug. "I just want you to be prepared ... I just want you to know how difficult life is for a telepath - for any young woman - who has had no proper mentoring. Do you know how hard, how dangerous, life can be when you've been abused, taken advantage of your entire life and then suddenly you can do something about it?" she asked Meg quietly.

Meg snapped to attention. She was an extremely perceptive girl, obviously, and she had always sensed her mother's troubled past simmering angrily beneath the cool still surface of the White Queen's psyche, but it was nothing Emma had ever opened up about - to her children, at least.

"Perhaps I can show you?" Emma murmured, more to herself than to her daughter.

Meg wanted to protest; she felt terrified. Her mother's past - something Emma had never even hinted about. What horror lay in those memories? And Meg had only just recovered from the telepathic storm, but ...

Didn't Emma Frost expect her child to fight thru her fears, to face difficult obstacles to grow stronger?

 _I am the daughter of the White Queen_ , Meg thought resolutely. _The most powerful telepath on the planet_. If Emma thought she could handle it, then Meg thought she could too.

"Yes," Meg said firmly. She knew her mom wouldn't plant or take thoughts from anyone's brain without permission. Emma reached out and touched her daughter's temples lightly. This wasn't necessary, Meg knew, but it was a gesture Emma used for grounding herself when executing an especially difficult - and in this case, painful - psychic task.

 _Follow my thought, Megan_ , her mom's voice chimed in her mind. _Think of it as unraveling a thread, untangling a hank of yarn. Follow the original thread. Do not get distracted by other thoughts, understand?_

Meg nodded, eyes closed. She realized now Emma had schooled her since birth on keeping others' thoughts _out_ of her head. Now the White Queen was teaching her how to go _inside_ others' minds.

Emma's "life-line," so to speak, the original thread of thought she offered her daughter was one of warm love and constant worry for her daughters; it pulled Meg into the White Queen's mind. Meg found herself gripping it for dear life as it sped her along the battlefield inside her mother's mind. Thoughts and emotions exploded around Meg. It was hell. She forced herself not to focus on them, but on the memories linked to the one Emma had given her -

There was the face of a man, hand raised in evil intent, then his face changed to that of another man, but still with the same horrific implications. Meg instinctively shrank away, but her mother's thoughts pulled her along to face the memories of a pool of blood, her mother weeping, a tiny body being pulled away from her imploring hands.

"Your waffles are burning," her mother's voice suddenly severed the mental link inside Emma's memories.

Meg's eyes snapped open. The smell of waffles about to burn filled her nose. Mechanically, she turned and opened the waffle iron; she needed a mundane chore to distract her from what she had just experienced. Her fingers shook as she took up the waffles on a platter; she tried to focus on the monotonous pattern stamped on them to soothe her mind.

"W-Who ...?" was all she could say, her voice quavering.

"The first man was my father," Emma answered mechanically, her monotone contrasting sharply with the horror Meg had just witnessed as if the White Queen had described it multiple times in a cool clinical way. It also contrasted sharply with the pure hatred Meg had sensed her mom felt for the man - Meg's grandfather. Meg realized this was the first time she had seen his face. And it was first time Meg had felt true hatred: pure, hot and blinding. "The other was a man known as Sebastian Shaw, a wicked man ..." Emma explained in the same almost robotic tone.

Meg wanted to stop now, but her mother plowed forward. "And the child -"

"Stop!" Meg begged faintly.

"Was your brother."

" _God_ ," Meg murmured. The tiny limp arms slick with blood.

"That was a hard lesson," Emma said, allowing gentleness to enter her voice. Thank God, thought Meg. This was the voice of her loving mother, not that horrible unfeeling monotone describing those hellish events. There was also pain in Emma's voice, raw and terrible, but not for her old memories which simply left scars. Those wounds had long closed. But she felt pain for her daughter's suffering at having witnessed these things.

"I-I understand," Meg gasped. "I-I understand the difficulty of entering another's mind."

"No," Emma replied, taking her daughter's face in her cool hands. "That was only part of the lesson, my child. Life is full of terrible things. You will experience them if you live long enough ... I cannot protect you from them. I cannot prepare you for them. I can only pass along my experience and pray you make the right decisions and the worst of fate avoids you."

Meg's blue eyes were full of tears. She longed to embrace her mother. But Emma made a motion with her hand. _Your sister is coming_ ... Emma spoke thru their psy-link. Ah, there was a third part to this lesson. Telepaths' business was to know the thoughts and emotions of others - not burden others with their own.

Thru the family link, Meg sensed Ruby's pure adrenaline tinged with fear which meant her little sister had been in some sort of mischief, but she also sensed Cyclops' presence was near the girl which meant they were safe, if a bit shaken. What had they been up to?

Another massive psychic presence, however, engulfed Meg's senses. Another powerful telepath was headed towards the Summers' home. _Your sister_ ...

Abandoning the waffles, Meg raced outdoors in her pajamas and slippers. A gigantic bird made of fire was descending on the boathouse; its wings were made of flames. At its center was a young woman with fiery red hair - literally - her hair was made of fire.

Rachel Summers, after all, wasn't called "Phoenix" for nothing.

The young woman touched down on the drive; the giant fire-bird folded its wings and seemed to be absorbed inside Rachel's body, leaving Rachel's arms open and fire-free for when her little half-sister Megan dived into them.

"Rachel!" she yelped in excitement. Meg was almost 15, but still a child in many ways. Her feelings could change like a feather turning in the wind and for the moment her mother's fears and memories were forgotten as she was beyond elated to see her big sister - the co-leader of the X-Men.

Rachel Anne Summers was home.


	9. Secrets & Surprises

**Another chapter focusing on the Frost-Summers kiddos. Marvel doesn't belong to me, blah, blah ...**

 **Please read & review! You know you wanna!**

 **Cheers, Maria**

 _ **Chapter IX: Secrets & Surprises**_

For the first time in her life, Ruby Summers had a secret and it felt delicious to keep it from everyone, even Meg. Especially Meg.

Ruby had been accessing the Astral Plane in her dreams since her sister's telepathic storm. Meg could not follow her there and their mother could not find out about it.

Because ...?

As far as Ruby could tell the Astral Plane existed outside of this dimension, so even a very powerful telepath like Emma Frost could not track her there nor detect any memories Ruby had of the place.

At least that is how Ruby figured it; she had known extremely powerful psychics since her birth and knew their tricks.

The Astral Plane (or "AP" as she referred to it in her private thoughts just in case her Mamma got suspicious) was amazing! Her own playground where she could wish for anything and make it so and put her powers to the test. Of course, the Danger Room could do this for the girl, but a grownup would always be hovering over her and set her a task at the lowest level like a _baby_.

Besides, on Winter Break, what few students remained at the Jean Grey School weren't allowed to work out in the Danger Room. Ruby was currently running off her excess energy on dawn races with her father - though those did nothing for the excess energy stored up in her concussive eye beams.

Now, she had the perfect solution.

Whenever she went to sleep now, Ruby became a dream warrior on the Astral Plane. Last night, she had ripped apart giant eyeballs with her ocular beams and had thrown in a vicious pterodactyl to really challenge herself.

She awoke with a strange mixture of elation and exhaustion. But, damn, was it ever paying off! Prior to her Astral Plane excursions, Cyclops was coming upstairs to fetch her at dawn. Now, Ruby usually beat him to the bottom of the stairs.

"Ready to get beaten by an old man?" he greeted her this morning as she tied on her running shoes at the foot of the stairs.

"Hmm, the leader of the X-Men eating a little girl's dust? Sad," Ruby replied sassily.

Father and daughter set off laughing into the pinkish dawn-light. They jogged down the boathouse drive and up the quarter-mile pathway towards the School campus, then they veered off with the rising sun behind them toward the ocean glimmering emerald-green in the morning light.

Ruby inhaled the frosty air with gusto - at least she supposed it was cold. Cyclops exhaled a steamy cloud of breath. His daughter's ruby-quartz bio-organic skin made it impossible for her to feel or be affected by temperatures. She sometimes wondered what it felt like to be hot or cold. Not pleasant, she assumed, as she snuggled into the hoodie her Mamma made her wear when she went out on her morning runs with Dad. Ruby really didn't see the point of clothing if it wasn't required to keep her warm, but Emma insisted even now when nobody but Dad was around to see.

Without a word or any visible signal, father and daughter broke into a run simultaneously. At times, words weren't required between them, Ruby realized.

This was her favorite time of the day. No matter how many directions his duties pulled him, her father always made time for their morning races. Ruby looked up at her dad in admiration; he was the only member of her family she could look up to. She had surpassed Meg in height when they were toddlers; she was now taller than her mother even.

Since Ruby could remember, she wanted to be like Cyclops. She shared his ocular concussive beams. She was the only one of his children and grandchildren who possessed his full massively destructive power, something Scott Summers was both thankful for (that his other descendants had avoided this trait) and saddened by (for the great burden his youngest daughter carried).

Ruby, however, secretly loved the powers she shared with her dad. Of course, like him, she would most likely only ever see in monochromatic colors and her concussive beams required constant containment for Ruby to function in society. But she did love the enormous power she was capable of and, secretly, she wondered if the ever-reserved Cyclops admired his youngest daughter for the powers they shared?

It was something that linked her to him. Though she knew Scott loved her and Meg equally, Ruby knew it set her apart. It gave her a warm feeling in her heart.

Why not share his role as leader? she wondered.

Ruby was secretly envious of her half-sister Rachel. Cyclops was grooming his eldest daughter to be leader of the X-Men. Phoenix had more than 20 years on Ruby and more experience than Ruby would probably see in a lifetime. But still ... Wouldn't Rachel require a co-leader when their father finally retired?

There was no way Ruby could achieve that if her father kept her within the confines he had been. Her mother had finally convinced Cyclops to allow their baby girl to train in the Danger Room when Ruby turned 13, but only on Level One - that is, Ruby incinerating stationary targets and ... not much else and always under strict supervision. She, the daughter of Cyclops, wasn't even allowed on a DR Team, even a low-level one on which the younger students trained. Those younger students usually began DR team sessions at 15 or 16, but still ... Wasn't Ruby the daughter of a renowned X-Man? The _leader_ of the X-Men?

She sighed internally when she reflected that that X-Man was the reason she wasn't.

Ruby's life seemed a lump of no challenge. No surprises. No danger.

Ruby knew most people viewed her as reckless and hyperactive, but if she were given the chance she could prove herself as a capable leader; she knew it. Well, she thought, her thoughts flying to the Astral Plane, her secret training ground, she would just have to keep _making_ chances for herself.

She felt herself pulling ahead of her dad as they rounded a bend in the trail and raced parallel along the seaside cliffs.

"Hey!" Cyclops shouted after his daughter in surprise and pride.

"Hoo-AH!" Ruby yelled back, amazed at her speed and endurance. Yes, those extra training-sessions on the Astral Plane _were_ paying off. She had never surpassed her father before. "Relax, I won't tell the other X-Men!" she taunted him.

"You _will_ pay for that!" he called back playfully.

Ruby just laughed in reply as she suddenly faced a fork in the trail they were running on - one path traveled steadily along the seaside. The other banked sharply up the mountain face. Ruby had an idea. Loping along like a graceful deer, she bounded left up the rocky mountain path, ignoring her father's cries.

The Summers family had explored the charming little mountain trail last summer when all Megan wanted to do was sketch butterflies and Ruby wanted to blow boulders apart to look for gemstones inside.

Emma hadn't allowed the girls to wander to the summit, however.

An adventurous spirit and the feeling of sheer freedom was driving Ruby now as she bounded over rocks and logs toward the mountaintop. Suddenly, a boulder that seemed as big as her house came rolling down the trail towards her. Without thinking, Ruby whipped off her visor and blasted the hunk of rock to gravel.

The girl gasped in delight. This was incredible - just like in the Astral Plane!

"Daddy, didja see that?" she called out, turning just to see an enormous conifer tree, toppled by her explosion, crashing down towards her, sending squirrels and pine needles raining down. OK. Maybe _not_ just like the Astral Plane; there were consequences here.

A wall of red incinerated the huge tree to bits. Scott was at his daughter's back, his fingertip held to the side of his visor, his body drawn taunt to spring into action.

"A good team player knows without a doubt when her teammate has her back," the X-Man said soberly, but there was something wry in his tone as well.

"Guess I'm covered then," Ruby said, grinning in reply.

Suddenly, a venerable tide of rocks, earth and trees seemed to be coming to meet them. _Rockslide_! Working back-to-back Scott and Ruby moved in an almost instinctive circle, blowing apart treacherous obstacles as they flew down the mountain at the pair. Ruby was impressed at how flawlessly she seemed to move to compliment her father's attacks. They were a formidable pinwheel of concussive optic beams shattering anything that threatened them, creating a safe island in the midst of the rock-slide.

She couldn't help but wonder if Cyclops was equally impressed.

Then the ground beneath their feet began to wobble. Mud was sliding underfoot like pancake batter. Black icky pancake batter. _Ugh_!

"A good fighter doesn't panic at unexpected situations," Cyclops continued in a calm tone, his voice at her shoulder. "She views it as an opportunity, not a catastrophe. She is constantly searching for a way to turn negative circumstances to her advantage."

Ruby saw a boulder float by. She grabbed her father's hand and took a flying leap before the dirt under their feet could suck them under the avalanche. They landed safely on the rock. She wobbled a bit, but her dad's strong arm steadied her.

Ruby laughed in exhilaration. She loved this. It was incredibly dangerous - but she felt herself thriving in this environment, making split-second decisions with razor-edge precision. No one telling her to slow down or hold back. Unlike the Astral Plane or the Danger Room, the stakes here were high, but so was the pay-off.

Cyclops wasn't celebrating, however. "A good leader understands the risks she takes and the possible consequences." Scott pointed grimly ahead. The boulder they were perched on was barreling towards a steep mountainside cliff.

"Oops! Time to get off, Dad," Ruby called out. Father and daughter jumped off and tumbled on solid ground ...

Just before the boulder went flying off the cliff, down into space and crashing into her mother's gazebo on the family patio far below them.

"Oh ... _damn_ ," Ruby murmured, though she did admire the way the gazebo splintered into a million pieces.

She glanced up meekly at her father who was scowling his disapproval. "A leader _always_ takes responsibility for the outcome of her actions and/or orders," he said.

Ruby scuffed the dirt with a running shoe. "I-I know Mamma kept nagging you to fix up that ol' gazebo," she mumbled.

"And I know a little girl who will spend her Winter Break building her Mamma a new one," Scott replied, frowning.

"Oh, damn," Ruby echoed.

Scott's disapproving scowl seemed to falter. Suddenly, the grave leader of the X-Men was roaring with laughter. Ruby joined in tentatively; she realized she was the only one she knew of who had this affect on her father.

"D-Did you see the way the patina exploded?" he asked Ruby, tears streaming down his face under his visor.

"It w-was pink!" Ruby replied, hiccuping with laughter.

They were at the base of the mountain trail when they got over their laughing fit. Scott was still smiling, shaking his head. "That actually reminds me of the first time Mother Nature tried to kill me."

Ruby perked up, listening hard. Her dad _never_ opened up about his past.

"Y-Yeah?" she asked him carefully.

"She was channeling hurricane-force winds and hurling lightening-bolts at us," he said reminiscently. "I had _never_ seen a woman angrier before."

Ruby looked at him curiously. "Mother Nature is a ... person? I thought that was just an expression."

Scott chuckled. "It is. I was referring to a very powerful woman the X-Men fought long ago. She could control lightening."

"Whoa," Ruby breathed, impressed. She thought about Meg, who was terrified of lightening storms. Poor Meg. What would she have thought of this formidable opponent?

Ruby was suddenly full of questions. "Why were you fighting her?" she asked. "Did you defeat her?"

"She had taken something very precious that belonged to me ..." he replied gravely.

"Like a jewel?" Ruby said innocently. She loved swashbuckling adventure stories like _Treasure Island_.

"Sort of," her father replied, smiling in a sad way. "But we didn't defeat her."

"You didn't?!" Ruby gasped. She couldn't imagine the X-Men _not_ winning a battle.

Cyclops laughed heartily. "The first of many battles we didn't win. A leader understands failure isn't just an option, it's inevitable. That is why a leader must weigh all options carefully. Diplomacy is just as important as knowing how to fight because your decisions put lives at stake - the lives of those you love.

"But I am very glad we didn't win that fight," he continued. "Because we received a better victory - our opponent joined the X-Men. She became my co-leader. One of the best; better than me, that's for sure."

Intrigued, Ruby wanted to ask more questions, but they were within sight of the boathouse now. Emma and Meg were outdoors, surveying the damage the rock-slide - _Ruby_ \- had done to the patio gazebo. Emma was tapping her foot in an angry way.

 _Damn_ ... Ruby murmured. She was saying that a lot these days.

Meg reached out to her sister thru the family psy-link, checking Ruby over for damages. She could sense her mother, face lined with concern, doing the same to Cyclops.

Scott kissed Emma on the forehead. "Look what Ruby did for you, sweetheart. She's going to build you a new gazebo," he explained cheerfully.

Emma narrowed her blue eyes at Ruby. Of course, she knew there had been an accident, but the White Queen knew to pick her battles as a parent. Right now, Ruby sensed her mom thought her youngest child had been punished enough.

"There is a surprise for you inside, my dear," Emma sighed. "Though I think you might not deserve it."

 _Surprise_?

"Surprises come whether we deserve them or not," Scott added. He also added another kiss to his beautiful wife's forehead, trying to erase the worried grimace her youngest offspring put there.

 _Race you_ , Meg telepathically "said" to her sister. The sisters bounded towards the back door that opened out on the deck. _Very smooth_ , Meg added psychically. _How the hell did you get out of that one_?

 _Tell ya later, sis_ , Ruby replied silently. _I will say we might have found the leader in the family_.

Meg shot her a confused look. _Duh, there she is_!

Rachel Summers, their half-sister, was seated at the kitchen island counter, eating her way thru a venerable pile of waffles and maple syrup.

"Heya, sista!" she said cheerfully thru a mouthful.


	10. Scars

**Hullo! This chapter focuses on Rachel Grey-Summers, my favorite of the X-Men after Storm and Jean Grey. I don't own Fleetwood Mac, but I love them! I don't own the X-Men. Weeee!**

 **Enjoy and please review! Cheers!**

 ** _Chapter X: Scars_**

Megan and Ruby rushed into the arms of Rachel Anne Summers, their big half-sister.

Rachel hugged them fiercely before pulling back to inspect the girls.

"Wow! You two have grown!" she proclaimed.

At this, Ruby stood taller and Meg stood as tall as she could. Meg had exactly zero of the Summers' height gene both Rachel and Ruby seemed to possess. Meg had stopped growing taller when she was 12; Ruby had easily grown three inches since Rachel had seen them last winter. Meg also knew, however, that her half-sister wasn't just being polite – Rachel could sense Meg's telepathic abilities which had grown in leaps and bounds since they had last met.

After her stepmother Emma Frost, Rachel was the most powerful telepath on the planet. But even Emma couldn't touch Rachel's raw psychic ability. There would come a day when the White Queen must concede her reign as the most powerful psychic in the world.

"Rachel, turn down that racket, for God's sake!" Emma scolded her stepdaughter as she walked inside the kitchen.

"Sorry, Emma," Rachel said with a lopsided grin. She turned down the volume on her ear-buds which were spewing _Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies_ … by Fleetwood Mac. "I get in the zone when I'm flying."

Tall with wild curly hair, Rachel definitely resembled Ruby more than Meg, but Meg liked how her half-sister shared some traits with her, like her penchant for late 20th century "soft rock" as Ruby called it. Rachel also liked painstaking tedious pastimes like sand-painting and puzzles that helped sooth her insanely powerful mind.

There was a massive age-difference between her and Meg – more than two decades, in fact. There were other differences too, like her strange facial tattoos and the livid scar over her right eye. When Meg was small she had been frightened of her tattoos; she still found them intriguing and mysterious. They resembled a Rorscharch drawing, Meg thought. When they were little, she and Ruby would spend hours arguing over what the tattoos resembled – Meg always saw a bird with spread wings in the odd markings.

Whenever one of them (usually Ruby) asked Rachel about her tattoos, she would reply: "They are a reminder of a past I fought hard to prevent for you and your sister."

The sisters did not understand this cryptic answer; all Meg could think about when she looked at them was how much they must have hurt to get. They definitely were _put there_. By someone else. Not Rachel nor with her permission.

Meg adored her half-sister, but there was a great deal of mystery surrounding her. Rachel had grown up with the X-Men. Not in the same way Ruby and Meg had. Rachel had been _raised_ by the X-Men.

Not the team of heroes that went by the name "X-Men" nowadays and were led by Rachel and her father. No. The original X-Men – Storm, Colossus, Iceman, Shadowcat, Nightcrawler, Beast, Gambit and Rogue – the ones Professor Charles Xavier had recruited back when the Jean Grey School had been named for him. The original X-Men who had since for the most part either dispersed or disappeared.

They, however, had cared for Rachel like a daughter. They changed her diapers when she was a baby, amused her with their wide array of powers, told her stories to get her to sleep. It was a charming tale, Megan thought, but she sensed there was something missing from it, something Rachel and everyone else who had known her left out when they retold her story. Something dark. Something wrong.

Like Rachel's tattoos, it gave Meg a cold ominous lump in her belly.

Rachel embraced her stepmother next; she didn't exactly have a mother/daughter relationship with the White Queen, but Emma had telepathically mentored Rachel when she was younger – before Meg and Ruby were born and the two definitely had a warm teacher/student relationship.

Not so with Scott. Rachel gave her father and co-leader a respectful nod and he almost stiffly returned the greeting. If not for the genetic similarities between them, no stranger would have guessed they were father and daughter. As with so many details surrounding her half-sister, Meg didn't know the reason why the two were so reserved with each other. She sensed Rachel's feelings of deep hurt and eventual forgiveness concerning their father Cyclops, but that was as much as she allowed Meg to know.

Ruby was bobbing around. She fired a barrage of questions at Rachel. "Did you fly the whole way? Did you see the Red Northern Lights? Do you know I have a puppy? Did you eat all those waffles that fast?"

Rachel grinned her lopsided smile at her baby half-sister. Like Ruby, Rachel had a fast metabolism and a roaring appetite. "Yes. No. Yes. And no," Rachel laughed.

Emma cocked an eyebrow at her youngest child and stepchild. "She was positively stuffing her face while Megan and I observed your … handiwork, Ruby," she explained.

"Those waffles were _mine_!" Ruby yelled, hitting Rachel with a punch that would have tossed Meg across the room. Rachel just grinned after a small grimace. "And _you_ said you wouldn't talk to Rach until we were together," Ruby turned accusing eyes on Meg.

"I didn't!" Meg replied, backing up just in case her sister started throwing punches at her. She knew Ruby was jealous of the bond Meg shared with their half-sister because they were both telepathic.

"No punching or yelling, please," Emma said sternly. Meg noticed the strain already showing thru the cracks in her mom's cool demeanor. Three Summers girls in one house were a bit much.

"We didn't say anything to each other. Promise," Rachel said to Ruby. "Almost the moment I got here, we heard a crash. Emma's gazebo got smashed to bits!"

"Heh, heh, yeah …" Ruby chuckled. "I-I mean, too bad," she mumbled, ducking her head with a guilty glance at her mom.

"Well, I figured only you could be responsible for such a catastrophe," her half-sister said.

"You should have seen the trouble _this one_ got up to when she was a child," Uncle Hank said, walking in the boathouse kitchen on his knuckles as was his fashion, and gesturing at Rachel. He smiled, showing his prominent incisors the size and sharpness of a tiger's.

Rachel hugged the furry blue man who had raised her. "You're looking greyer, Uncle Hank," she commented.

"You alone put each of those grey hairs on me, Rachel Summers. Trust me when I say these two could do no worse than you," he replied, jerking an elbow at Ruby and Meg. He faced his two little nieces. "Around the time she was six, Rachel would go missing for days. We would find her in the oddest places – on the greenhouse roof, miles up the road fraternizing with motorcycle gang members, in a cave deep in the forest. We discovered her to be dimension-hopping with young Master Franklin Richards." Hank shook his head as everyone laughed, including a blushing Rachel.

"Alternate timelines are nothing. I wish I could _fly_ …" Ruby sighed.

Meg glanced at her sister; it was such an odd thing to say. Even stranger was how Ruby reacted to her sister's pointed look. Meg sensed her doing some major mental back-tracking as if she had said something wrong.

Ruby _was_ keeping a secret from Meg and Meg was going to find out what it was if it was the last thing she ever did.

"Well, my dimension-hopping days are over," Rachel stated looking at Ruby in the same puzzled way as Meg. "And flying is hard. It took me years to learn how to do it properly," she cautioned.

"If I were telekinetic, I could learn, I'm sure," Ruby declared.

"Telekinetic! Wrecking my house with ocular beams isn't enough?" Emma commented. She too suspected something and was looking curiously at her youngest daughter.

"Um, well, y'know, if I were," Ruby replied with a shrug and then lapsed into suspicious silence.

"Did you see the Red Northern Lights?" Meg asked inquisitively. Sometimes on freezing nights in the middle of winter, Meg could see the shimmering beautiful Aurora Borealis in shades of green, but the Red Northern Lights were extremely rare. They only appeared at certain times and in certain places, such as in the isolated boreal forests far to the North where Rachel lived when she wasn't with the X-Men.

There she lived with her twin children, Jonathan and Megan's best friend, Jeanie. Rachel and her children traveled to be with the Summers family during Winter Break after viewing the Red Northern Lights. Though Rachel was co-leader of the X-Men, this was the only time of the year Meg and Ruby got to see her. Rachel flew here using her telekinetic energy while Jeanie and Jonathan hopped thru alternate dimensions to get to the Jean Grey School.

"No," Rachel replied, a shadow crossing her face. Something was wrong, Meg sensed it. She could feel a disturbing undercurrent behind the mental barriers Rachel put up in her mind. Fear gripped Meg's heart when she wondered if Rachel's troubled feelings could concern her daughter, Jeanie.

Not that trouble was anything new to the twins. Their powers certainly made them unusual, even by _Gifted_ standards. Meg adored Jeanie, but she would be the first to admit that catastrophe tailed her and her brother and not necessarily thru their own intentions – simply due to their very odd abilities.

Emma sensed it too; she loved the twins as much as their biological grandmother. "Rachel …" she murmured, gently touching her stepdaughter's shoulder.

Rachel ran her fingers thru her red hair. "Jonathan stayed behind with Laura," she replied, smiling bravely at the girls.

"Jeanie isn't coming either?" Meg asked, disappointment written all over her face. She honestly had never cared for Jeanie's strange twin brother. He was aloof, distant and silent, caring for no one but his sister it seemed. And Laura … the twin's "other Mama," an angry and intense woman, kind of scared Meg.

"Jeanie is here," Rachel chuckled, beaming at her half-sister. "Did you really think she would come here without seeing Kingsley first?"

Meg clapped her hands and dashed out the back door, all other thoughts and concerns forgotten. She jogged around to the backyard where her Angora rabbit hutches were kept. Sticking her finger between the wire on the rabbit's run, Jeanie was gently rubbing Kingsley, Meg's oldest buck, between his eyes in that place rabbits loved to be scratched. When she spotted Meg, the tall redheaded 16-year-old projected an image directly into Meg's mind of a huge exclamation point. Meg giggled and ran to hug her best friend.

She and Jeanie had been besties since Meg was two and Jeanie was three. Jeanie communicated primarily thru projecting her thoughts telepathically into someone's brain. She was sweet and gentle and very, very pretty.

Extremely pretty. As in so pretty Meg might not have liked her if Jeanie wasn't her best friend and Meg liked lots of attention. Because around Jeanie she was going to get practically none. Last summer Jeanie and Jonathan had come to the Jean Grey School to see if they liked it. Jonathan didn't. Jeanie flourished. Meg actually got used to a herd of admirers orbiting her best friend. Even the knowledge that Jeanie was the granddaughter of Cyclops could not keep her suitors at bay.

Jeanie basked in it. It was almost offensive. Meg was used to telepaths being reserved and slightly reclusive, but her best friend not only didn't mind the constant barrage of emotions people provided; she almost seemed _starved_ for it. She thrived, almost having a hypnotic effect on others – boys and girls. They laughed at all her jokes and agreed with all her ideas, even if they were dumb. It was honestly annoying.

Meg was used to seeing Jeanie once a year and having her all to herself. She knew it was selfish, but that was the way she liked it; that's the way she wanted it.

Jeanie projected an image of herself flying alongside Rachel into Meg's mind.

"You flew the whole way here?" asked Meg in amazement. She had no idea her best friend could _fly_. But then Jeanie was the daughter of an extremely powerful telekinetic. Her kinetic abilities were obviously blooming as she grew in … other ways, Meg thought, surveying her tall gorgeous best friend.

Jeanie smiled and projected an image of herself falling and her mother lugging her the rest of the way. Meg giggled, but she also felt concerned.

"Why didn't you dimension-hop with Jonathan the way you usually do?" Meg asked curiously. The twins could travel thru alternate dimensions, a trait they had inherited from their father, Franklin Richards, a supremely powerful man. They could use this power to create shortcuts between distances in this reality, but they always – _always_ – had to come home eventually. The dimension they were born into sustained them.

"Why didn't Jonathan come with you and your mom?" Meg added.

It wasn't unusual for Laura to stay behind during Rachel's family visits. Laura was notoriously reclusive and bad-tempered, but Jonathan almost always accompanied his mom and sister.

For a social butterfly who loved interaction and attention, Jeanie could shut you out in a heartbeat if she didn't want to discuss something – as she was doing now. Her behavior only ensured Meg, however, that something was very wrong with Jeanie's twin brother.

Meg didn't really like Jonathan, but she knew he and Jeanie were extremely close – to the point of co-dependence almost. Meg remembered her fear when Ruby was recently closed off to her psychically. She could imagine Jeanie's worry and terror.

Jeanie smiled at Meg and projected an image of the "Yuki Trolls," their favorite TV show when they were little, and the whole Summers family, including Uncle Hank, sitting around the television in the family room.

Meg laughed at her quirky friend. Watching Yuki Trolls the first night the entire family was together was a Winter Break tradition. Then Jeanie put an image in her mind of Meg's Auntie Marie and her two children, Raven and Olivier, joining them.

"Wow! Auntie Marie and her kids are coming too?" Meg cried in delight … but she felt worry nag at her mind as well. Marie, better known by her codename "Rogue," was a former member of the X-Men. Marie was headmistress of the New Orleans School for the Gifted and an extremely formidable woman. She and her son and daughter joined the Summers family here during Winter Break, but never until Carnival, a winter tradition down South where Marie's school was located, was over.

Something was definitely up if Rogue and her kids were coming now.

Meg wondered what it could be …

 **###**

Rachel wandered the grounds of the Jean Grey School, formerly Xavier's, the place she had grown up. Every tree and rock seemed to have a memory attached to it. Jumping into fall leaves. Playing in the snow. Hide-and-seek with her Uncle Kurt when they of course beat everyone using his teleportation powers. Her footsteps took her to the old greenhouse, abandoned now. How many happy hours had she spent there tending her Auntie O's plants? Back when Rachel had been an odd mute child with blindingly difficult powers.

She felt tears sting the back of her eyes when she thought of Jonathan, her son. Was he fated to repeat his mother's unhappy adolescence when she was taken from a family that loved and nurtured her and forced to survive on her own? No, she thought, angrily dashing the tears away with her hand. She had sworn to do better by her children – all _Gifted_ children in their generation, including her little half-sisters, Ruby and Meg.

"Are you going to tell me what is wrong?" Cyclops asked.

Rachel, of course, hadn't sensed him walk up behind her. The mental imprint all people had that Rachel knew them by was absent in her father. He was one of a very few people without it; it was sort of like missing fingerprints.

None of her childhood memories here included him. As a little girl, she'd had no idea who he even was. She'd run from the sight of him during his very sporadic visits and hid behind her Auntie O's skirts. Auntie O and Uncle Hank were her mother and father as far as Rachel was concerned. They might as well have been. She wanted nothing to do with the silent, angry, brooding man who was her father.

Throughout the years, Scott had changed. He had a very different relationship with his teenage daughters than he'd had with Rachel … and Rachel was a major reason he had.

"Emma can't understand this, even if she allowed herself to look into my thoughts," Rachel replied, facing Cyclops, crossing her arms in the stiff, formal way she always did around him. Over time, she had truly forgiven him and had even begun to understand why he behaved as he had when she was small. She now viewed him as a trusted leader and ally, but that was as far as their relationship went. She shared his genes, but she'd never view him as a father. "Because I can't understand this – not fully," she murmured.

Ironically, perhaps Scott could. Or at least she could discuss it with him. Meg, Ruby, Hank and even Emma were too close to Rachel for her to share this with them. She needed a logical objective view and, oddly enough, Cyclops, ever the outsider in her life, was it.

"A few nights ago, Jeanie argued with Laura and ran away," Rachel explained. Scott cocked an eyebrow at his eldest child. Sweet-natured Jeanie was proving to have every bit of her maternal grandmother's temper. Cyclops knew grown men who wouldn't dare argue with Laura.

"Jonathan went looking for her – inter-dimensionally – and he didn't come back."

Rachel sank her nails into her palms until they cut thru the skin. The tears swelled behind her eyes, but she would not cry in front of her father.

"He couldn't."

Rachel watched her father go rigid in shock; it was the closest she would get to any emotional reaction from the ever-reserved Cyclops. Her co-leader's mouth formed the word "couldn't," but no sound left him.

"That's right. He _can't_. Something is preventing him," Rachel said impatiently. She didn't fight with her father the way she used to when she was a hot-tempered younger woman, but his emotionless nuances still exasperated her.

"I haven't spoken with Franklin. You know I can't," Rachel hissed, closing her eyes, trying to steady the horrible anger inside her chest that wanted to burst out and hunt down whatever – whoever – had prevented her son from returning to her and kill them slowly.

Franklin had given up whatever power he had to return to this dimension – and whatever power he had to communicate with those in this dimension, including Rachel – when the twins were very small.

"I prayed Jonathan was with his father, but the twins must return to this dimension within 72 hours, at most," she said, her voice dangerously close to cracking. "I-It appeared as though he were trying," she added. It was twilight now and Rachel allowed a single tear to slither down her cheek; she prayed Cyclops wouldn't see. "When Laura and I found Jeanie, t-there was an … _outline_ of him … my son. I-I could sense he was struggling to return here to this reality with his sister."

"You can still detect him psychically?" Scott demanded, his voice dangerously even. Rachel knew this man who was her father was, like her, holding something back in light of this news – something explosive.

Rachel shared a psychic rapport with both her children, allowing her to sense their emotional state at all times. It was sort of like the psy-link Emma had established amongst her family, but Rachel hadn't had to create this rapport with her twins. It simply came to be when they were conceived. And the rapport linked her to Jeanie and Jonathan even when they left this dimension.

The proud Phoenix finally broke down in tears. "No," she wept.

"I remember Jeanie and Jonathan being cut out of my belly and taken away from me when they were newborn babies, when I was sick and weak and mentally broken. Now my power is at its fullest," Rachel cried, rage throbbing thru her body. Her eyes and the scar over her right eye glowed and a flaming bird seemed to erupt around her, beating at the air with its wings. One voice that seemed like countless ones boomed out: " _Who would dare take the Phoenix's child_ ?!"

"Rachel …" Scott said. His voice was soothing and even gentle. He almost never used her true name, preferring to call her by her codename with the X-Men: Phoenix. It was like a kind and unexpected touch; it seemed to shake Rachel from her fit of rage. She could count on her hands the times her father had behaved like a loving supportive parent towards her.

The gigantic fire-bird retracted its wings inside its host again and Rachel fell to her knees, sobbing. Cyclops gently put a hand on his daughter's shoulder. She lifted her head in surprise at this unexpected gesture of comfort and then embraced him.

"The strongest, the most dangerous enemy might have," Scott murmured. "The deadliest foe the X-Men have ever fought."

He had her full attention. She gazed up at her father with her wide blue eyes. When she was a child, Rachel had had to wear protective eye-gear just as her father did to contain the albeit weaker concussive beams she had inherited from him. Hers had neither the power nor intensity of his or Ruby's. She had eventually learned to contain them.

" _Apocalypse_?" she whispered as if saying the name aloud would summon the awful presence every living thing in their world lived in mortal fear of.

Apocalypse as they knew "him" was an incredibly powerful being who was once only a man – _En Sabah Nur_. But all traces of his mortality and morality had gone. The X-Men had not defeated him – one such as Apocalypse was immortal – but they locked him away in an alternate dimension – his prison where he could never harm another person. Franklin and Rachel had led this attack on Apocalypse; it had cost the X-Men dearly. Iceman, one of the founding members of the X-Men and one of Cyclops' closest friends, had perished, orphaning his two young children.

And Franklin had forever given up his ability to return to this dimension, for fear of setting Apocalypse free. Rachel too had sacrificed her ability to accompany him. She could never see her lover and lifelong friend again.

In fact, a dire punishment had been set on anyone who traversed dimensions, until of course, Rachel's twins were found to have this ability. Jeanie and Jonathan had to travel to alternate dimensions in order to stay alive – in the same way plants were sustained by the sun. Their travels, however, were always carefully supervised by their father. They could travel nowhere without Franklin knowing. And he would ensure his children would return to the home dimension where their family lived.

So Jonathan missing was extremely troubling.

"It's the logical explanation," Scott replied softly. Rachel knew him as a stern man, hardened by leadership and a warrior's life, but she also knew now he wasn't without compassion. "And the perfect revenge on you and Franklin."

Without Rachel's sheer cosmic energy and Franklin's ability to dimension-hop, Apocalypse would not have been defeated that day.

Rachel's eyes darted around frantically. She struggled to slow down and think clearly, logically, but desperation clouded her thoughts like choking fog. God, her son in the hands of Apocalypse!

"H-He wouldn't kill Jonathan," she whispered, but that was no comfort to her. Rachel had seen firsthand what Apocalypse could do to the living … and death was so much better.

With his telekinesis and inter-dimensional powers, Jonathan was already a formidable warrior. Apocalypse had abducted and brainwashed more than one young warrior to turn him into his personal assassin.

"If Apocalypse has Jonathan …" Scott trailed off. It was too horrible to fathom. He had watched one of his closest friends, Archangel, become a pawn to the evil being. Now, the same was going to happen to his only grandson.

Rachel could never know her father's thoughts, but she could sure as hell guess them as she felt his embrace tighten. Her father had hugged her this way only once. "D-Dad …?" she asked.

"We must assume Jonathan's stumbled upon Apocalypse," Cyclops finally said, his voice hoarse. "Franklin created his prison so he could never escape. So _no one_ could ever escape."

It was true. Franklin Richards had lured Apocalypse into a trap – into an alternate dimension, a labyrinth the powerful being could never escape. If Jonathan wandered inside it … he might never escape.

"Then we must formulate a plan," Phoenix replied desperately. "We have to rescue Jonathan."

Scott cupped her face in his hands. She could tell his eyes were searching her face, looking for the woman, her mother, he had loved and lost so long ago. "No," he replied, the lines in his face hardening.

"What?!" she gasped.

"If Jonathan has found Apocalypse's prison –"

" _Dad_!"

"He found his way in …" Cyclops whose entire life seemed one tragedy after another, who had seen more friends than he cared to count die on the battlefield, faced his daughter and said: "Let's pray to God he doesn't find his way out."

Rachel felt the blood drain from her face. She couldn't believe she was hearing this.

"He's my son!" she cried.

"And my grandson! My only grandson," Cyclops snarled. "Do you think I don't love him?"

"No!" Rachel screamed, her eyes beginning to glow again. "You're willing to sacrifice him? You're willing to throw him away? The same way you threw me away?"

"If Apocalypse finds his way back to this dimension do you have any idea what that could mean? Yes, of course you do!" her father shouted. " _You_ fought Apocalypse alongside Franklin Richards. _You_ watched Iceman die. Apocalypse is the reason his kids don't have a father! The reason you can't raise your kids with their father! Do you want that terror unleashed on our dimension again?"

"Jonathan is _my son_!" Rachel screamed at him. "I would make any sacrifice for him!"

"Any?" Scott demanded. "What about the millions that would die if Apocalypse came to this world? What about the rest of your family? What about Jeanie? What about Ruby and Meg?

"You're the leader!" he shouted her down. "A leader weighs the needs of the many against those of the few. That is your lot, Phoenix! Accept it!"

Rachel was weeping in earnest now. Scott glared down at her. Finally, he turned and began to walk away. Her tears abating, Rachel sniffled. "You always did, Dad," she murmured. "It was so easy for you to cut your losses and walk away. From your family, from your friends … from me."

Scott whirled on his eldest daughter, his hand touching the side of his visor. Phoenix's eyes burned as the outline of a fiery bird began to burn around the woman. The co-leaders of the X-Men prepared to face off –

-When Meg came trotting up with Kingsley in her arms. Rachel glanced at her little half-sister and powered down, the girl's bewildered appearance bringing Phoenix back to her senses. Megan had sensed Rachel's distress and anger and had come looking for her. She, of course, could not sense her father's emotions.

Right now, the girl's blue eyes were darting back and forth between her dad and half-sister, fear written on her freckled face.

"Uuuh, w-we're gonna watch Yuki Trolls now," Meg stammered.


	11. Winter Traditions

**Welp, here we go! These characters belong to Marvel - except Oliza, Eleanor, Martin and Mattie Jones - they belong to me. Mattie Jones is the daughter of Angelica Jones AKA Firestar. Mattie took her mom's codename in honor of her. Hurrah!**

 **Please read & review.**

 **Love, Maria**

 ** _Chapter XI: Winter Traditions_**

Meg, Ruby and Jeanie watched, dancing with excitement, as their Auntie Marie descended out of the greying clouds like an angel from one of Meg's old storybooks. Rachel was watching too; she could be just as bad as the children sometimes.

The girls were mobbing their Auntie almost before her feet could touch the ground. Marie, AKA Rogue of the X-Men, laughed good-naturedly as she was dog-piled by her vivacious nieces. Then she lifted them all up in her arms and seemed to wad them together like crumpled paper. Rogue was, without a doubt, the strongest person - man or woman - Meg knew. Then she put them down to look them over.

Her inspection wasn't like Rachel's in which she implied Meg had grown in her own way as much as Ruby or Jeanie had; Meg, the shortest of the Summers, knew to expect some ribbing from her boisterous aunt.

"Well, well, lookit these grownup women ..." Rogue said, crossing her arms. As it passed over Ruby and Jeanie, her line of sight seemed to hover in the air over Meg's head before cutting down to the girl's low level. "Oh, and here's lil' Meggie!"

Meg endured Rogue's teasing like a good sport. It always annoyed her, however, that her tall voluptuous auntie valued physical strength and power above all else it seemed. It made sense, however. Rogue was tall - taller than Ruby, taller than Rachel even - with long wavy auburn hair that fell down almost past her knees with its trademark streak of silver flashing thru her mane of tresses. Whenever Meg imagined an Amazon like in the stories, she thought of Rogue.

Rachel kissed her Auntie Marie lovingly on the cheek. When Rachel was little, Rogue was every bit of a protective older sister to her. And with Rogue's super-strength and no-nonsense attitude, Rachel never had to worry about bullies when Rogue was around.

Sixteen-year-old Raven LeBeau, Rogue's daughter, touched down next to her Mama. Meg envied how Raven could fly just like her mother. Unlike Rachel who had required years to master flight, Raven and Rogue just did it naturally, without even thinking about it.

"You're too in your own head, _sugah_ ," Rogue would tease her smallest niece, usually with a gentle shove. Of course, a "gentle" shove from Rogue would usually send Meg sprawling.

Raven, called "Ray" by just about everyone, was almost as tall as her Mama. Like all Rogue's children, she had a slash of white racing thru her short spiky mahogany hair.

Ray was a good deal quieter than her Mama and a good deal less boisterous. Ray's problem was she was accident-prone. She attracted accidents. Unlike Ruby, who liked rowdy behavior, Ray actually tried to be quiet and gentle, but even her best efforts usually left holes in walls and craters in pavement.

She was giving her little brother, Olivier, a flying piggyback ride. Other boys might have taken this as an affront to their manly pride, but 15-year-old Oli took it in good stride. He was so used to living with two ferociously strong females that a piggyback ride from his sister didn't offend him.

He was wearing that same mischievous smile he usually did when he climbed down to the ground. Oli loved mischief, pranks and jokes and Megan loved him. After Jeanie, he was her closest friend and certainly her best male friend. All the children had grown up together like cousins and Winter Break was their big get-together. And when they got together Oli was always the troublemaker.

Meg ran to hug him, but when she embraced Oli she drew back in surprise. He towered over her now. _Hmph_! she thought. Was she forever destined to be the short one? And what were these ... _muscles_?! Oh yes, the skinny boy she had known her entire life was gone. Puberty had hit Olivier Etienne LeBeau hard.

But when she looked at him in shock, he just gave his best friend his trademark grin - the same charming smile from the same charming boy Meg had known since she was a baby. His dark-brown-almost-black hair made his forelock of white stand out even more. And then there were his shades. Like Ruby's, they contained a great power generated by his eyes, but Oli's gaze didn't destroy things - it hypnotized them, persuaded them, told them what to do. So he could never look someone in the eye - that would be as unfair and unethical as Meg going thru their thoughts.

"How you, Miss Meg?" he asked her. Like their Mama, Oli and Raven spoke with her gentle, warm, unhurried accent. Meg noticed her friend spoke about an octave _lower_ now. She had absolutely no idea how to feel about this.

Of course, Ray hardly ever spoke except to say when she was hungry which was all the time. "I'm hungry, Mama. I am, honest," she murmured to Rogue now.

"Ray-Ray, you _honestly_ ate 15 minutes ago," Rogue hissed at her daughter who responded with a downcast expression.

Emma, Cyclops and Hank came outdoors to greet their high-spirited old colleague and her young. Meg could tell her mom was trying her best to appear gracious, but was thinking nervously of how much damage Ray could do and how much the girl could eat. Meg could practically _see_ her mother tallying up property damage and grocery bills in her head.

One winter when Ray was 10, Olivier had dared her to eat 15 tacos in under 10 minutes. Ray had eaten 30 tacos in five minutes and then ate two quarts of cookies-and-cream ice cream for dessert. When Ray was 12, she had picked up a Volkswagen bug to prevent it hitting a stray cat, but had accidentally dropped the vehicle thru the boathouse sunroof.

Meg was honestly scared to think what Ray could do _intentionally_.

Megan noticed when Rogue was distracted Oli slipped four granola bars out of an interior pocket in his jacket and handed them over to his sister. Oli had lined his clothes with secret hidden pockets since he was a little kid; he kept all manner of treasures hidden there.

Ray had unwrapped and scarfed down all the snacks before her mama could even turn around.

Meg grinned. Rogue didn't allow her daughter to eat whenever and how much she liked, so all the kids took a leaf from Oli's book and always kept a supply of snacks hidden on themselves in case Ray got hungry - which she was constantly.

"Where's Jon?" Oli asked, peering around for Jeanie's twin brother. Oli was as close to Jonathan as Meg was with Jeanie. Though the boys were more like "partners in crime." Jonathan was the perfect sidekick in Oli's many elaborate schemes. Cyclops' visor stolen and replaced with 3D movie glasses? Every last lacy scrap of Rogue's "cute" lingerie missing? Beast's fur dyed pink? Oli and Jonathan were always responsible, but they _never_ got caught.

Jonathan would simply hide in another dimension in the frightful wake of whatever mischief Oli had cooked up and Oli ...

Oli was a psychic ninja. His thoughts and emotions were undetectable by even the strongest telepaths. Not even Emma could track him.

It was no wonder Rogue's children made the White Queen so nervous.

 _He doesn't know_? Meg wondered. She saw concern written all over his face at her reaction. One thing Meg loved about Oli and one reason they were such good friends was his brain wasn't constantly bombarding hers with thoughts and emotions, but he seemed capable of emotional expression.

Meg squeezed his hand gently as a way of saying, _Later_. She couldn't communicate with Oli telepathically which was just as well as there were too many telepaths present to be snooping in on private conversations. Besides, Jeanie came swanning up and Meg didn't want to upset the girl about her brother. Not that Meg had to worry about Oli's attention on _her_ anymore ... Jeanie was guaranteed to turn young LeBeau's head just as she did any other boy.

But to Meg's amazement, Oli just waved cheerfully to Jeanie and squeezed Meg's wrists in reply. Jeanie projected an image of Oli in a tuxedo and Meg in a white gown into her best friend's mind - this picture was accompanied by Emma and Rachel's psychic "laughter."

 _Ugh_ , thought Meg. This many telepaths in one house were just too many!

 **###**

"Sniffles is kind of an idiot. I hate him," Ruby said sagely.

"He's a bad influence. I'll say that," Emma put in.

"Oh, _he's_ a bad influence, you say?" Scott teased his wife, tugging at a strand of her perfectly straight white-blond hair.

"Yes, of course he is - and not the _good_ kind," she stated.

"Lookit, here's Yurik!" Rogue exclaimed.

"Eek! What a scary creep!" Rachel replied.

"Is it time for dinner _yet_?" Ray whined. "I'm _so_ hungry, Mama. I might pass out."

Everyone was sprawled around the television in the family room watching "Yuki Trolls," the kids' favorite program from back when they were little.

Everyone except Meg and Oli, that is, who were ensconced on the window seat in the hallway off the family room leading to the kitchen. They had slipped out when Yurik had come to the Trolls' home to demand the Snow Maiden be given back to him.

The window seat looked out on the lake. It was the perfect place to have private discussions - or at least it was for Oli and Meg. Oli could not be detected psychically ... and the boy was perfecting a secondary power in which he could extend this mental cloaking device to others. It was perfect; Emma couldn't "listen in" on their conversations - but she could glance nervously at the two children from the adjacent room as they whispered together. The White Queen liked to be in control of everyone and everything at all times; needless to say, Oli gave her fits.

"Nobody knows where Jon is?" Oli asked softly. He tugged at his long white forelock, a nervous habit Megan had never noticed before.

"I don't know that for sure," Meg replied. "But Jeanie tunes me out completely when I ask about him and Rachel ..." She glanced in the family room where Rachel was sitting on the floor with one hand lightly stroking Jeanie's hair. Jeanie swatted absently at her mother's fussing, her eyes glued to the TV. "I've never seen her so messed up about something.

"And then there's Dad ..." Meg looked at her father, sitting on the sofa snuggled next to Emma. Jeanie sat wedged between her grandfather and mother. Occasionally, the girl would glance imploringly between them, trying to bridge the gap she sensed there. Meg knew Scott adored his sweet and popular granddaughter as much as anybody else. Meg, however, could _feel_ the tension between Cyclops and Rachel. It was even greater than usual and that was saying something.

Meg recalled stumbling upon her father and Rachel arguing fiercely near the old abandoned greenhouse. It had disturbed her so deeply she couldn't even bring herself to divulge this to Oli.

"I think Dad _might_ know what's going on," Meg whispered.

"You can sense it?" Oli asked.

Meg shrugged. "Really can't tell for sure with Dad. I can't detect him psychically. Nobody can ..." She smiled rather shyly at Oli. "H-He's a lot like you in that way."

Oli replied with a sly self-satisfied expression. Meg had always taken it for granted that her young friend could dupe the most powerful telepathic minds on the planet. It's not like she found him dashing or anything ... right?

She thought again how much he had changed and yet, he hadn't. Was he thinking about how she had _changed_? she wondered, a slight flush creeping up her cheeks. She remembered Howard Najeer's less-than-subtle thoughts about her own person. How would she appear to someone (a _boy_ ) who had not seen her in a year's time?

Or was she still just little Meggie Summers? All freckles, exactly 5-foot-1, full of neat crafting ideas?

That was all right, she assured herself. That was unchanging. That was safe.

Olivier was one of her best _friends_. Why would she want that friendship to change?

 _Why should anything have to change_? she wondered. She hated it.

Oli gently stroked Meg's arm. Meg had a loving family, but not an overly demonstrative one. She knew Oli's family expressed affection in different ways. Still, knowing all that, it felt ... nice. _He wasn't holding Jeanie's hand._

"You kids are missing Yuki Trolls," Cyclops said at their shoulders, making Meg and Oli jump. Oli could slip thru any crack undetected, but Cyclops was one person he had to work hard to fool.

"Y-Yessir!" Oli said, jumping off of the window seat where he had been seated rather close to Meg, she noticed. Her father had never been "sir" or anything except "Uncle Scott" to Oli before. If Meg had to guess, Oli seemed almost intimidated by her father; it was an unusual look on the boy. _Nothing_ scared Olivier as far as Meg knew.

Cyclops put his arm around Oli's shoulder as he led the boy back into the family room. Oli shot Meg what appeared to be a frightened look over his shoulder. "We have a nice room set up for you in the dormitories, Olivier," Scott said in a friendly way.

That was certainly odd, thought Meg. Auntie Marie's family never stayed anywhere but in the boathouse when they came to visit. Was _Ray_ staying in the dormitories too? Had Emma finally cracked at the LeBeau children destroying her house?

"He's 15 now, y'know," Ray said in Megan's ear. Meg almost shot in the air. She was so _sick_ of people sneaking up on her! Ray had some of her brother's sneakiness; she was very hard to detect psychically, but then Ray was impossible to ignore in every other way. She was always causing explosions or breaking things.

"Huh?" Meg replied. It was strange hearing Ray say anything that didn't pertain to food. She noticed the girl was munching on another granola bar. Meg wondered where she had got it from. It was oatmeal raisin, so probably Ruby.

"Olivier is 15. He has a million girlfriends back home; your Papa probably knows that," Ruby stated in a matter-of-fact way. "You would be amazed at what girls would do for my brother," she added, cramming the rest of the granola bar in her mouth.

Meg was shocked. At both how much Ray had said (she had never heard the girl say so many words all at one time) and what she had told Meg.

"W-What are you implying exactly?" Meg demanded, but Ray only replied with a "don't-say-I-didn't-warn-you" expression.

Ray returned to the family room and Meg didn't know what else to do but trot after her. Her head was starting to hurt again. She was so tired of everyone acting weird.

Rachel, fussing with her daughter's hair again, glanced at her eldest half-sister as Meg quietly sat down in the semi-circle around the TV. Megan felt Rach give her a telepathic nudge, but Meg put up a strong mental shield against her. Rachel was cool and everything, but, like most telepaths, she could be nosy and controlling.

"Are there any bad children in this house?!" a voice boomed from the front door.

"Yes! The Snow Troll!" Ruby shouted, pumping her fist.

"Does he have peanut-butter balls?" Ray demanded, pushing her legs out from her sitting position and knocking over the TV. The house trembled.

"Aren't we a little too old for this?" Oli asked, smiling casually at Meg, trying to look nonchalant, but the other kids were on their feet in excitement - all except Jeanie. She just sat with her chin in her hands, staring at the now-upended television. Rachel was looking smilingly in the direction of the front door, but to Meg it seemed her half-sister was wearing a mask, trying too hard to seem happy. Brave.

The other grownups were doing it too - keeping up a facade of bustling festiveness. Ignoring the elephant in the room. Meg wished hard that she could see that elephant, understand why Rachel and Jeanie were so upset - understand what had happened to Jonathan.

Meg was certain she couldn't be the only one noticing Rachel's eyes beginning to glow, something she did when she was angry or agitated. Megan remembered her half-sister and father arguing last night near the abandoned greenhouse; they looked like they had almost come to blows. The girl shivered at the memory. Meg hated fighting and conflict of any kind. In School, she was taught hand-to-hand combat along with the other kids, but she disliked the idea of ever putting it to the test. She'd never had to. Meg knew her life was sheltered, safe ... even if she really didn't understand just how much. Even Ruby, who had a good-natured roughness about her, never really meant any harm to anyone.

The thought of their father and Rachel, co-leaders of the X-Men no less, fighting with malicious intent sickened and disturbed Meg deeply.

Uncle Hank came striding into the family room wearing a very peculiar fur robe. "Which children have been good?" he asked merrily as an equally oddly-dressed crowd of Toad, Firestar, Eleanor and Oliza (holding baby Martin) pushed their way in after Beast.

The kids, even Oli, Meg noticed, cheered and held up their hands as Uncle Hank, "The Snow Troll," tossed them candies. It was a tradition from Meg's earliest memories. Uncle Hank came to their house on the first night everyone was together for Winter Break dressed as a storybook character who rewarded children for good behavior.

Hank, with his shaggy fur and large fangs, certainly fit the part of "Troll King" - though it was impossible to be afraid of the big blue teddy-bear as Meg had always thought of her "Uncle" and closest grownup friend - in the same way Toad, dressed in a black fur robe, fit the part of Krampus.

Krampus was an imaginary troll of the "not-so-nice" variety who came along to punish the naughty children.

Of course, logically, Meg couldn't name one of the kids gathered here who hadn't smashed something or caused an explosion of some kind in the past year, but she knew this was all a farce in good fun - something for _children_ , Oli had reminded her, but if Meg was completely honest, that didn't make it any less fun. It made it _more_ fun that they could be this big and still get away with doing something so childish.

Toad looked a bit like Krampus from the storybooks with his slightly hunched posture and long sticky frog-like tongue. He didn't have horns or cloven hooves, but his toes could stick to walls like a gecko, making Toad have great precision with vertical space and he was a crack-shot with his whip-like tongue.

Mortimer "Toad" Towlansky was the deputy headmaster of the Jean Grey School and a renowned X-Man. He was a good fighter on the field, but his focus was his role as teacher in which he thrived. He was certainly Megan's favorite. She had adored Toad since she was seven when he had waited up all night to trap a fox who was preying upon her Angora rabbit hutches.

Toad was wearing a long black fur robe and held Krampus' traditional switch and carried a large bag "to put bad children inside" as the tale went. He, of course, was having as much uproarious fun as the children.

His very pretty girlfriend, Mattie, AKA Firestar of the X-Men, tagged after him. Mattie Jones wasn't taller than her boyfriend, but she seemed to tower over Toad because of his hunched shoulders. Add that to her bright orange hair, green-rimmed glasses and multitude of freckles, and she could easily draw all the attention from a room - a lot like Jeanie, Meg mused.

Mattie radiated heat waves, the intensity of which varied according to her moods, but it wasn't a power she could "turn off." There was a constant warm halo of heat hovering around the beautiful woman. Meg noticed a warm trail on the crisp frosty lawn out the open front door leading up to the boathouse.

Ironic Mattie would be dressed as a Snow Maiden in a long white dress and wreath of frost-covered white leaves, Meg thought a bit disdainfully. Meg didn't really like Mattie. She was nice enough - _warm_ , Meg thought with an inward chuckle, but the reason for her aversion to pretty popular Mattie was, strangely enough, Toad himself ... or, more specifically, her relationship with Toad.

Most people Meg knew were of the opinion that Toad had "gotten lucky" with Firestar as she was "quite a catch" for the X-Man. True, Mattie was sweet and attractive, but Meg believed _her_ to be the fortunate one in this case.

Brave, thoughtful, kindhearted men like Toad didn't come along everyday and Meg secretly found him dashing, in a playful kind of way. In fact ... if Meg were a bit older she might have given Mattie a run for her money.

Oliza was dressed as a Snow Maid too as was little Eleanor. The girl's straw-colored hair, for once, didn't seem to clash with her light dress as much as her Mama's dark tresses. Eleanor looked quite smug to be standing with the grownups as part of the pageant, performing for the "big children." Martin was dressed in a snowflake-shaped jumper and looking as gooey and delightful as ever, his fist crammed in his mouth.

Of course, all the women there proceeded to go absolutely nuts over him. Rogue, the fearsome Amazon, could be as pathetic as Emma Frost over babies and even Rachel had absolutely no self-respect as she reached for Martin. Meg noticed Firestar happily bouncing the snow-baby and struggled not to roll her eyes. Rumors were flying thick around the School that Toad and Mattie were trying for a baby of their own. Meg wondered what sort of baby they would have - a fire-frog perhaps?

"I have come for my Snow Queen!" Hank roared in a dramatic way. "Who here is to be sacrificed in her stead?"

This was part of the ritual. Now, all the kids (excluding Jeanie) were clapping their hands and even the adults were fully invested in the fun.

"So many beautiful nymphs to select from ..." Beast said, tapping his chin with a claw amid gales of laughter. "What say you, cloven-hooved Pan?"

"I've already got mine," Toad replied gallantly, hugging Firestar close. Meg made a gagging gesture towards Jeanie, trying to get her attention, but the girl just seemed to pull further into herself.

Beast glanced playfully at Rogue who made a shooing motion with her hand. "Nuh-uh, _sugah_ , or I'll kick your fuzzy blue ass all the way to Manhattan," she quipped to which Beast grinned toothily, replying, "Point taken, my good lady."

"Perhaps instead of a Snow Queen, a _White Queen_ would do?" he asked, narrowing amber eyes at Emma.

"Not a chance, Beast," Scott said with a smirk, but pulling Emma closer just in case.

Beast seemed to consider something for a moment before reaching down and pulling Rachel to her feet. Hank knew Rachel better than anyone perhaps and Meg could tell he was trying to jolly the troubled young woman into having some fun. Rachel gave her Uncle Hank a grateful expression, but her smile still looked forced.

"Yes, a fire-tressed goddess! Beautiful Brunhilde!" Hank exclaimed. "And what about ...?"

He scooped up Jeanie in a playful manner. Jeanie adored her Uncle Hank as much as any of the kids, but now she just stood there staring off into space.

"Yes, two fiery beauties! Now who fights for their honor? Which brave Siegfried dares the ring of fire? Who dares challenge the Troll King?" he demanded.

"I will!" Ray volunteered, stamping her foot and immediately creating a hole in the floor.

"Er, does _anyone_ else?" Hank replied nervously.

"Ooo, Daddy, let me! Let me!" Ruby begged, shaking her father's knee. "I am old enough!"

"Yes, I know you're old enough, sweetheart. The problem is Uncle Hank is _too_ old," Scott told his youngest child.

"Charming as usual, Mister Summers," Hank said, frowning at his old friend and colleague.

"Truthful as well," Scott replied with a grin.

" _I shall_!" Olivier cried out, leaping up from his place next to Meg.

He began sparring with Hank with an imaginary sword. Using his natural agility and finesse, the boy ducked between Hank's legs and did a spectacular leap over his head. Beast caught the boy in mid-air. Instead of struggling, Oli went limp before seemingly melting out of Hank's grasp. Everyone applauded wildly as Olivier took a bow. He had to be the slipperiest kid Meg knew - and he loved showing off, of course.

Olivier had grown since last winter, but Jeanie still had almost an inch on the boy. Nevertheless, he grabbed her in a gallant sweeping gesture, his hand on the small of her back.

"My fair maiden; you are safe," he said in his most dashing way. It wasn't lost on Meg that Jeanie was easily the most potentially powerful of all the children here - she did not even _need_ protecting. _Especially by Olivier_ , Meg considered. This was all a joke, of course, but Meg still felt something unpleasant jump inside her guts as she watched her two best friends.

Hank fell dramatically, clutching his chest as though Oli had stabbed him with an invisible sword.

" _And my poor fool is hanged. No, no, NO life? Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, And thou no breath at all? Thou 'lt come no more, Never, never, never, never, never_ ..." he intoned, closing his eyes.

The children, led by Oli, approached Uncle Hank tentatively, glancing uneasily at one another. "Rawr!" Hank roared, leaping and grabbing Oli, Meg, Ruby, Ray and Jeanie in his massive embrace.

The kids screamed with laughter - except Jeanie. They rolled away from Beast, giggling uncontrollably on the floor. The grownups roared along with them ... but Rachel only chuckled half-heartedly, glancing self-consciously at her daughter.

Jeanie stood, fists clenched, glaring at the floor, her shoulders rigid.

Suddenly, an invisible wave seemed to emanate from the girl. The same mental image filled the minds of everyone: Jonathan twisted and broken like the body of a baby bird in an enormously cruel hand.

Everyone stopped laughing when the horribly disturbing image filled their heads. It was so vivid, so terrible that Meg's eyes filled with tears. Ruby was trembling and Ray and even Oli seemed to be breaking their brave facade and fighting back tears.

The adults seemed equally shocked, but not exactly as disturbed as the children were. Meg felt their minds emanating deep sadness, but they weren't exactly appalled. Meg found this almost as disturbing as Jeanie's mental projection.

Rachel's emotions were perhaps the most troubling of all - she seemed almost resigned to grief. She put her hand gently on Jeanie's shoulder, but the girl shrugged off her mom's hand and ran away, bare feet and all, out the front door into the frosty night.

Everyone looked prepared to dash after the girl, Meg most of all, but Rachel held up a hand and it was like everyone remembered she was leader of the X-Men. The tall young woman didn't looked particularly commanding - her shoulders were sagging as though from a particularly heavy burden - but the others, adults and children both, followed her orders instinctively and were still. Rachel had inherited her father's presence; when she spoke, people listened attentively.

"I-I don't know what rumors you've heard or what conclusions you've all come to," she said in a hoarse voice. She still spoke with that horrible resignation. But Meg sensed something more in her half-sister's psyche - Rachel, as a leader, had recognized a priority to benefit everyone ... but not her beloved son.

Meg could barely acknowledge this horrific feeling pouring from Rachel's mind, let alone understand it. She did notice, almost subconsciously, Emma and Rogue's deep feelings of sadness and empathy towards the young woman.

"But the X-Men are a family. Always have been," Rachel continued bravely. "My family at least. So I don't want my family relying on assumptions or flimsy conclusions. That is not what a ... _leader_ does." Her voiced cracked slightly on "leader."

"Jonathan is not coming home to this dimension. He fell into an inter-dimensional trap. Some of you know what that means; others might not." She glanced sadly at the children assembled there. "It isn't really important if you do or not. What is important is the ... realization that my son is in a - _circumstance_ \- in which _I_ , in which _no one_ , can help him without endangering the lives of countless others.

"And as a leader, the leader of the X-Men, I cannot allow myself to do that.

"But as a mother ..."

Rachel trailed off. The gentle light bounced off her fiery hair as she stood there proudly, her beautiful face contorted with sorrow. Then she bowed her head and followed her daughter out into the night not even closing the door behind her.


	12. Lost Children

**Sooo, hallo! Chapter 12, peeps. To those who are curious, Olivier and Raven AKA "Ray" are the children of Rogue and Gambit in another zany Marvel timeline. So, have fun with that. Her son Xavier (Gee, wonder who he's named for?!) is the product of her union with Magneto (in the Age of Apocalypse timeline). Like I said, I'll be mixing a lot of different timelines in this story, sooo ... Andre and Lizette are the children of Rogue and Gambit and are my original characters. All other chars belong to Marvel. Eric Clapton is indeed NOT mine.**

 **Have fun! Please comment!**

 **Cheers, Maria**

 _ **Chapter XII: Lost Children**_

 _ **Motherless children have a hard time when mother is dead, lord,**_

 _ **Motherless children have a hard time when mother is dead, lord,**_

 _ **They don't have anywhere to go,**_

 ** _Wandering around from door to door_** **...**

-Eric Clapton, "Motherless Children"

Rachel sat cross-legged in the attic room of the old building at the Jean Grey School. When she was a small child this place had been known as Xavier's, this now-ivy-covered building had been the main mansion for the School inhabitants and the attic space had been her Auntie O's personal room, almost every space crowded with the plants she couldn't fit in the greenhouse.

Now, this area was mainly used as a storage space, but Rachel still found a space large enough to sit and solace in this place with its glass ceiling open to the starry winter sky. Her Auntie O, the woman who raised her after Rachel's mother died, had severe claustrophobia and demanded spaces open to her beloved skies, their clouds, their stars, their sun and moon. Auntie O was very much like one of her plants, opening her arms to the unrestricted expanse of the heavens.

Moonlight fell across the dusty floors in bright squares. Rachel sat in one block of it, gazing up at the massively full silver moon. Rogue sat cross-legged directly behind her, brushing her niece's long curly red hair in long soothing strokes. It was a ritual they had dating back to when Rachel was just a toddler and Rogue was her teenage "aunt."

Both Rachel and Rogue had explosively difficult powers. Rogue's power lay in her touch; into her late teens she couldn't so much as kiss someone without fatally harming them. Skin-to-skin contact would cause her to drain someone of their very life-force. This caused her to be a recluse with severe social anxiety when the X-Men found her as a young girl.

Her life took a turn ultimately for the better when she joined the X-Men.

There she found her first true family, met her future husband and her longtime roommate and friend Kitty Pryde. Kitty was a primary reason for Rogue's assimilation into some semblance of a society and family. Kitty was the one to start the "braid train." Rogue couldn't so much as hug or cuddle another person, but her best friend could brush and braid her long auburn hair. Back then, when Rogue was a shy nervous teenager wielding a relentless debilitating power, Kitty's hair-brushing sessions were about the only physical contact she had with another person.

When Rachel's powers began to manifest, almost as soon as she reached toddler-hood, the girls took to styling her fiery curls. Rachel benefited in a different way than Rogue, though it helped her tremendously nonetheless. The rhythmic monotonous motion of the brush thru her hair calmed her frantically powerful psychic mind and Kitty's therapy built the foundation for soothing telepathic brains like Rachel and Meg's thru monotonous chores.

Neither Rogue nor Rachel really needed to indulge in it now. They had both - more or less - mastered their super-powers years ago, but it was still something they did when they got together as a way of expressing comfort thru touch, which was exactly the point.

Rachel needed that now more than ever. Rogue knew her "little niece" tended to shut her loved ones out when she was suffering a problem for fear of harming them. Rogue sensed this in Rachel because it was how she had behaved herself as a young woman.

Rogue, however, like Kitty Pryde had done with her, knew there was a subtle way to approach Rachel - namely, at midnight in her Auntie O's old attic room. There, Rogue fell to brushing and braiding Rachel's long red hair as she had done when Phoenix was a little girl.

In the braid-train, you had to brush and braid the hair of someone in front of you (the tedious task was balanced with the soothing gesture of the person behind you) so Rachel fell to the task of plaiting the mane of one of Meg's old pony figurines, "Pretty Plum," which she had discovered up here.

"I remember giving Meg this pony when she turned three," Rachel remarked in an annoyed tone.

"She ain't like the slicked-up kind Meggie keeps in her room," Rogue commented with a chuckle. "Relax. There'll come a day when she comes back around to it; don't you worry. People're like that, sugah. Kids're like that ... They get embarrassed by what they had as a baby, but when they get grown, well ..." Rogue shrugged with a smile. "Then they figure they _need_ it. Hold on to what they had when they had it so good."

There was a wistfulness in Rogue's expression. Her thoughts exuded bittersweet memories of her own five children - Xavier, Andre, Lizette, Raven and Olivier. Rachel knew them each very well ... including poor 'Dre.

"Trust me I know," Rogue added as her thoughts turned specifically to her second-born son. Rachel often detected Rogue's memories and emotions surrounding Andre and was always amazed by the fact that they weren't all sad; the majority of them were joyful reminiscences tinged with sorrow - like a gentle rainfall on a sunny day.

After her fashion, Rachel cursed herself for causing her aunt this personal pain due to her own troubles over Jonathan. This was paired with Rachel's desperate fear for her only son which was constantly hovering over her thoughts like a nagging scavenger.

Rogue suddenly turned her niece to face her. The older woman gently caressed Rachel's cheek. Long ago, this would have been a terrifying gesture; Rogue's touch could ultimately kill. Now, however, she could control her powers - she could drain just as much thoughts and emotions from the person she touched, never enough to harm them. In fact, it could be beneficial to a person, unburdening them of severe emotional pain.

Rachel could sense her thoughts on Jonathan filling up Rogue's mind. It was a release, like a downpour from a storm-cloud - with it came the tears streaming down Phoenix's face. She'd been holding them back bravely since her son's disappearance. Her dry eyes symbolized hope for Jonathan, but now ... she buried her face in Rogue's bosom and cried like she did when she was little and frightened and ran to her Auntie Marie to protect her.

Rogue soothed Rachel, stroking her long red hair, letting her weep into her blouse until the front was soaked thru.

"Feel better, _sugah_?" Marie asked, gently tilting her niece's chin up to look into her dark-green eyes. Rachel paused to draw breath and then shook her head, twin dirty streaks on her cheeks. Rogue gently brushed them away. "Well, hon, if you want some advice - you won't," she murmured in that sweet, but no-nonsense way Rogue had. "Losing a chil' is a sorrowful thing. The worst, cruelest thing as can happen to a body. And the hurt don't go 'way. Time don't heal it. You jus' get better at dealin' with it. Adapt. People are great at adaptin', even to a pain bad as that. Pain don't change; you change, if'n you live long enough."

Rachel rested her head on her auntie's chest again. It was horrible what Rogue had said, but also true in a way. Although Jonathan was still gone, the tightness in her chest that was almost suffocating her was now a little lighter. Adaptation. Survival. Few people knew more about survival than Rachel Anne Summers.

Rachel closed her eyes, listening to that strong heartbeat that belonged to that unbelievably strong woman, Rogue. The rhythmic beat soothed her just as all Marie's gestures of kindness did.

"B-But don't you worry?" Rachel whispered thru her tears. Her storm of sobs had lightened to a drizzle of tears now.

"That I'll forget my sweet boy, 'Dre?" Rogue replied, rubbing Rachel's back. "Nah, _sugah_. An' don't you go apologizin' about your own Jon makin' me think 'bout Andre. That's a great thing, baby."

Sniffing, Rachel looked up at her auntie, puzzled.

"Sometimes his face, his smile, his scent might get hazy in my memory," Rogue explained with a sad smile. "But when I feel another's pain for their chil', like you." The beautiful woman shrugged. "Makes me see Andre clear as day in mah head, see? Sadness is a powerful tool, hon, to those as know how to use it."

Rachel closed her eyes. "If it were my life for Jonathan's ..."

"You'd sacrifice it in a heartbeat, baby. Do you know how many times I told myself that very thing? More times than I could count. But sometimes Fate choses our sweet babies and it ain't them that suffers. It's their Mama's."

"But there could be a chance to save Jonathan," Rachel said softly.

"Don't think there was a chance to save my darlin' 'Dre?" Rogue asked her. "Don't think I ever tortured myself with that thought? A Mama always asks herself that, a million times ain't enough. But with Jon ...?" Rogue shook her head sadly. "It's true what you say, hon. You can't save that boy without risking so many others you love. I know you'll make that decision, painful as it is," Rogue added with a humorless laugh at how weakly words described a mother's suffering for her lost child. "You're like your Daddy that way."

Rachel pawed at her eyes with her sleeve. "Yeah, like my Dad," she sighed. "Some might not consider that a compliment, Marie."

"Like you?" Rogue replied with a smile. "Well, I do. Your Daddy always put his team, his family, first. No matter how much he suffered for it."

Rogue stood up, her head almost brushing the ceiling. She pulled Rachel to her feet. Even at her full height, the top of Rachel's head only came to Rogue's chin.

"Ruby and Ray are on the boathouse roof waiting for the first snowflake of winter," Rogue chuckled. Another tradition. Though, of course, Ruby and Ray were about the only two of the children to do it. For everyone else, it was just too damn cold. Rachel normally would have joined them. Ruby's bio-organic ruby-quartz skin had a natural tolerance to all temperatures, hot and cold, and Rachel's blood, which was literal fire, kept her warm in chilly conditions. Ray, however, would be bundled up in several sweaters and her snow-pants.

Thru their psy-link, Rachel sensed her daughter, Jeanie, was not with them nor with Meg and Oli. But she sensed the girl was within this dimension - Rachel had forbade her daughter to dimension-hop since Jonathan's disappearance - and with Emma. The twins were as close to Emma as they could be to their biological grandmother and, of course, the White Queen adored them.

Jeanie was in good company, for now. It was just as well, Rachel thought with a inward sigh. Currently, her daughter was positively allergic to her mother's.

Rogue opened a glass pane in the attic ceiling and soared out, hovering so Rachel could catch up. With another sigh, Rachel spread her fiery Phoenix wings and followed her auntie into the cold night air.

All the while, Rachel was musing over Rogue's words: _Your Daddy always put his team, his family, first._

 _No_ , Rachel thought silently. _No, Auntie Marie, not always, he didn't_ ...

 **###**

Dream Jeanie Richards sought out strange hiding places, Emma thought. Hank and Rogue concurred that Jeanie's mother, Rachel, had done the same when she was small. Once, the X-Men had found Rachel hiding out in a black bear den! Emma seriously hoped her step-granddaughter would never take it that far.

Even so, Emma found herself trudging up a mountainside on the coldest night of the year, so far. Emma's skin could turn to diamond, so she could not feel the biting wind. So the lot of finding her wayward step-granddaughter fell to her. Why the hell couldn't her step-granddaughter be a little less-complicated? she wondered. Her Grey blood, Emma Frost supposed.

To Emma's telepathic senses, Jeanie's psychic presence was like a gentle little light way out here in the wilderness surrounding the Jean Grey School. The White Queen followed it up the rocky trail and towards a clearing and a ledge overlooking the valley, and the School, below. The campus twinkled like little stars in the venerable dark sea of forest.

Jeanie was standing there looking down dramatically on the valley below, her long, long red hair swaying in the wind. Not for the first time, Emma wondered why the hell Rachel didn't just order her daughter home. Emma certainly would have done the same for Meg or even Ruby. Emma wasn't sure if her step-granddaughter's free-spirited headstrong ways lay in her upbringing (Emma was reminded for the up-teenth time that Jeanie's father had named her "Dream" for God's sake) or in her genes (the child's surname was Richards, but it might as well have been Grey).

It was also never lost on the White Queen that Jeanie seldom acted out rebelliously against anyone except her "Mama's" - Rachel and Laura. Last summer, when the girl came for a temporary stay at the School, she was the model student and granddaughter - she never talked back or disobeyed Emma or Scott's rules. Of course, it also was not lost on Emma that her husband indulged his only granddaughter far more than Ruby or Meg. He made far more allowances with Jeanie than he ever would have tolerated with his own daughters - like allowing Jeanie's admirers to openly court her. Boys were careful what they _thought_ around the Summers' girls. Though, Emma thought glibly, she doubted any force of nature (Scott Summers included) could deter males from openly worshiping Jean Grey's beautiful charming granddaughter.

 _You couldn't find a warmer hideout, Jeanie_? Emma called out telepathically to her step-granddaughter.

This is how it worked. Emma would punish her own telepathic daughter strictly for running away in a temper - if indeed Meg ever disobeyed in such a way. Which she never had. Jeanie, however, took coaxing, persuading, diplomacy. Even the stringent White Queen bowed to these rules concerning her bull-headed step-granddaughter because ...

Oh, she was as big a fool for that girl as anyone else, if she were completely honest with herself. It was the Summers' blood, she concluded, and its persuasive affect on the White Queen. Emma was an even bigger fool for Jonathan, Jeanie's twin brother. She felt a sharp pang right in her chest just thinking of him.

Also, she wondered if Jeanie would even respond to harsh punishment. It would be like beating a dog for a bad deed; she wouldn't understand.

Jeanie turned towards Emma with an "oh, you" appraising expression. Emma felt a stab of indignation. Jeanie, excepting her blue eyes, was a picture of her maternal grandmother, Jean Grey. Jean and Emma had been rivals in life, never friends, and Jean, the most powerful telepath on the planet, had refused to bow to the White Queen.

Emma was always surprised that she'd never felt resentment towards Rachel's twins - especially Jeanie. Emma had felt a sort of humorous indignation when Rachel conceived, making the vain beautiful White Queen a grandma overnight. A step-grandma, but still ...

Then Rachel had given birth just a few months prior to Emma birthing Meg. Again, this should have caused a strain, but Jeanie (Jean Grey's namesake) and the daughter of the White Queen, as if spurning the Universe, became the best of friends.

What shocked Emma most was her own reaction to Rachel's daughter. She adored the girl as much as anyone else. Jeanie had that sway over people, even the most hardened of them, it seemed. She genuinely loved people and expected them to love her in return.

Still ... there were times when Emma was unnerved by just how much this girl she loved seemed so very much like the old rival of the White Queen.

Jeanie looked back out over the valley. Like her mother, she didn't seem to feel the cold. Fire-blood, Emma thought. The Phoenix's child. Without speaking, Jeanie projected a mental image directly into the White Queen's mind. Like everyone who knew the girl, Emma was used to this. Jeanie had been a late talker. So was Megan. She didn't say her first word until she was two. She couldn't hold a verbal conversation until she was four. Neither she nor Jeanie saw the need to speak when they could communicate so well telepathically. That had been a stressful time for Emma as she worried her little girl would never learn to talk. Circumstances had eventually forced Meg to learn verbal communication, but Jeanie still seldom spoke. Her twin brother Jonathan had yet to speak a single word.

Jeanie only spoke verbally when she had to, to people who couldn't respond psychically - like her Mama, Laura, and her grandfather, Cyclops. Emma had tried forcing Jeanie to communicate verbally with her, but that was an enormous dead-end. It was like forcing someone to speak a language they barely knew. It almost seemed cruel ... especially now.

It took Emma a moment to register the mental projection Jeanie had sent her way. When she did, tears of shock stung her eyes. These _weren't_ Jeanie's thoughts - they were Jonathan's. Jeanie was mentally viewing her brother's circumstances from his perspective.

 _And they were horrifying_ ...

Bizarre. Grotesque. Jonathan's body, mind and soul being twisted and warped like clay by an enormous hand. _Apocalypse_ ... Emma had seen what the terrifying supernatural being had done to comrades of hers; even worse, as a telepath, she had felt the unnatural horror of a person's mind and body being broken and shaped to Apocalypse's will. And how he wouldn't allow them to die to escape this torture.

This is what was happening to Jonathan and Jeanie was experiencing it right along with her brother thru the psychic bond that had linked the twins since conception.

"He's doing this to Jonathan," Jeanie said. "And I can't stop it." Emma had almost forgotten what the girl's voice sounded like she so seldom spoke. "Why can't I _STOP IT_?!" she screamed suddenly. The very trees seemed to shake at this unexpected sound. Birds clattered out of the treetops. Emma was shocked, both by what Jeanie had shown her and her shriek of pure agony. She had never heard the girl raise her voice before. It was like listening to a tree scream or a stone.

"Emma!" Jeanie cried. "H-Help me!" She flung herself at the White Queen. Jeanie, sweet and empathetic though she was, had a measure of her brother's quiet dignity. Emma was almost appalled by the girl's actions; she had never seen Jeanie behave this way before. Only the deep connection she shared with her brother could bring this out in the girl. "Help him, please!" Jeanie pleaded, her wide blue eyes filled with tears. "Help him die, please! H-He wants to," Jeanie began to sob. "He's hurting so badly. But he can't! And I can't help him - I can't, can't, _can't_! I can't survive without him, I'm sure, but I'd rather die than him suffer another second. God! Please help us die, Emma!" she wept.

The White Queen sensed so much thru Jeanie's sad conflicted thoughts. Her brain's landscape was very much like that of a dying person, shutting down its mental functions. And that was no coincidence. Jeanie was an empath. She was experiencing every ounce of her brother's almost unfathomable pain. That, however, wasn't the only reason the girl seemed to be shutting down mentally. Jeanie and Jonathan _had_ to explore different dimensions in order to survive, in the same way people _had_ to breathe air. Jeanie couldn't explore different dimensions for fear of meeting Apocalypse like her brother had, but now she was suffocating like a fish out of water.

"Emma, help us ..." Jeanie hiccuped thru her tears, gazing imploringly into her step-grandmother's ice-blue eyes. "T-There is n-nothing I can do."

Emma gazed right back into Jeanie's eyes. How many of her students, how many children, had Emma held in her arms and watched them die? Her sad, troubled thoughts flitted back to her infant son as his body was taken from her imploring arms. Not this one ... she swore to herself. Not her sweet Jeanie. Perhaps Jonathan was beyond help, but Jeanie wouldn't die right along with her brother.

"Look at me, darling," Emma commanded her. "And do not say that. There _is_ something you can do. There is always something you can do. We always have a choice - or at least you do in this matter. First of all, you aren't going to die, not right now, at any rate -"

As Jeanie opened her mouth, Emma shushed her.

"What good are you to Jonathan, or anyone else, dead? Yes, the pain would stop for you, but really what would it _change_ about this situation but another child to mourn?" Emma whispered fiercely at the girl. "Nothing at all! That's the talk of a quitter and you are not the granddaughter of a quitter!"

Something in Emma's tone piqued Jeanie's interest and the girl looked at her step-grandmother with a quizzical expression. Jeanie projected an image into Emma's mind of a tree with the White Queen standing at its base and Jeanie and Jonathan perched in its branches.

"Very good," Emma chuckled wryly. "But I actually wasn't referring to myself."

Jeanie's projection changed to show Sue Richards, her father's mother, standing alongside Emma at the tree's base. Emma had hypothesized that one reason she and Jeanie were so close was because Emma shared similarities with Sue Richards - both were tall, blond with a razor-edge wit and genius.

Emma grinned. "Guess again," she suggested. Jeanie's gingery eyebrows lifted as her projection of a fiery bird filled up Emma's mind. "That's right," Emma murmured. "Jean Grey was a strong-willed woman. She never did know when to throw a fight or keep her head down." Emma didn't really know herself if she spoke with admiration and praise of this quality or exasperation and disdain. She figured it fell somewhere in between. What was definite was Emma's envy - yes, _envy_ \- of this trait. Emma was a fierce fighter, but even the White Queen couldn't top Jean Grey's sheer psychic power in battle. Emma knew no one who could. "You take after her a great deal in that regard."

Shock radiated from Jeanie's mind, enough to make Emma feel slightly self-conscious. It was no secret she and the late Jean Grey had not exactly been the best of friends in life, but Jean had died with Emma's grudging respect.

Furthermore, there was no denying Jean Grey as a fearsome telepathic and telekinetic warrior - her temper matched only by her loyal devotion to her friends and colleagues.

Emma, almost shyly, impressed this upon her step-granddaughter who sat listening with rapt attention. Jeanie projected an image of herself surrounded by bright, multi-colored ponies in a landscape of rainbows and smiling sunshine.

The White Queen laughed. "Yes, you are the sweetest little thing. So was Jean Grey, devil with an angel-face. View that as an asset, darling," she replied when Jeanie wrinkled her nose in distaste at Emma's words. "Some fighters are flashy and loud; let them underestimate sweet little Jeanie - it could be your greatest advantage."

Jeanie seemed to have calmed down a bit now as Emma gently massaged her temples as she cupped the girl's face in her hands, the rhythmic motion soothing Jeanie's tortured mind. The pain was still there, but Emma's almost hypnotic exercise had calmed and soothed Jeanie's brain like a drug, allowing the girl to focus.

She suddenly spoke: "Y-You said there was something I could do?"

Emma smiled. "Yes, that's right. I can show you how, but on two conditions."

Jeanie nodded expectantly.

"First, no more panicking, agreed?" Emma said.

A green-light appeared in Emma's mind.

"Second, you cannot tell anyone, promise?"

A giant zipper floated thru the White Queen's brain.

Emma chuckled.

Jeanie smiled a small smile, her blue eyes cast back down towards the valley.

 _What would Jean Grey think of me_? Emma wondered. _Mentoring her granddaughter, just as I mentored her daughter_? It was almost poetic justice, Emma thought wryly, considering their rivalry when Jean was alive.

That's when Jeanie stretched out her hand, her pinkie finger out. It was a gesture Ruby and even Meg would have scoffed at as childish. But it just went to show how perhaps Emma was best suited to tutor and teach Jean Grey's strange descendants - even more so than her own daughters.

Smiling, Emma linked her own pinkie finger with Jean Grey-Summers-Richards'.


	13. The Festival of Fools

**_Hola, amigos! The next few chapters will focus on Warren Worthington's family, specifically his grandchildren: Griffin, Perri and Sparrow which are all my personal characters. All other characters belong to Marvel. I hope ya enjoy, folks!_**

 ** _Cheers, Maria_**

 _ **Chapter XIII: The Festival of Fools**_

Griffin Worthington had imagined this would be easier - and a lot more fun.

Since he could remember, he had dreamed of his first Carnival. It would be a feast for his eyes and ears which had so negligently been deprived of colorful sights and sounds.

Carnival was the opposite of what he assumed, however. No. It was actually exactly as he had imagined it. What he hadn't anticipated was his own confused reaction to it all.

The noise was what threw him off the most. The constant _oomph-pah_ of gongs and drums clashing and the high whinnying sound of instruments surrounded him. It seemed to scramble his echolocation. Griff navigated primarily thru sound, bouncing it off of objects to get a mental image of any obstacles. Now, the sheer sound of Carnival drowned out any attempts he made at echolocation, scrambling the images in his mind's eye with static.

Even the _light_ in Genosha seemed noisy. Griffin knew power on the island was generated from pure psionic energy - from the very mental thoughts of its citizens. Nothing visual had ever interfered with Griff's echolocation before, but the soft pulsing blue light the city streets and buildings emitted seemed to _whisper_ to Griffin in a thousand voices.

Add this to the normal sounds of millions of people going completely nuts and Griff's head almost exploded. _Open up your eyes_ , he told himself. He did and realized he was wearing his blindfold. He wore it like some people wore glasses - it helped him better view the world by canceling out distracting visuals. It helped him focus better on sound. Now, for the first time in his life, sound was Griffin's enemy.

Well, so much for tracking his missing sister with echolocation ...

"How the hell do people get about this way?" he wondered aloud as his eyes took in an even more crazy spectacle than the one his ears described to him.

Revelers wore wild costumes ... leering skeleton people danced to a relentless beat that seemed to seep up from the very streets below them. And people were dressed as birds, not sleek raptors, but the feathery extravagant sort - songbirds, macaws and birds-of-paradise. _Uck_ , Griff was not impressed. They might as well have masqueraded as bats ... Griffin noticed several revelers with pointy ears hanging upside-down from a nearby building.

 _Well_... he thought in annoyance.

"Nice costume, matey," a voice spoke at his shoulder.

Griff jumped. It was the first time in his life anyone had ever sneaked up on him. "Stupid city. Stupid noise. Bloody stupid 'ell!" he muttered the same curse his Mum, Irene, did when she was at her wits' end.

And Griff had never been more frustrated than he was now. Ironic, considering this place and time was exactly where he had longed to be his entire 12 years.

"Well, good evening to you too," the speaker added with a chuckle. Griff looked at the voice's owner. It was female ...? he guessed. She (?) was furry and fanged with slanting green wolf eyes. Her sole article of clothing was a jacket she slouched in casually. She was sipping a strong-smelling drink. Great, as if Griff needed one more thing to make him feel sick and confused on this wretched island.

"Y-Yeah, you too," he replied. He shouted at her, hurting his own already worn-out ears, and hoped she heard him. He couldn't imagine how anyone could even communicate here, but this one seemed to do it efficiently.

The wolf-woman took another swig of her grog. "Thanks," she said with a leer. "I love that movie ..."

"W-Wha?" he asked.

"Y'know, 'Teen Wolf'?" she said, slanting a hairy eyebrow at him.

"Uuuh ..."

"Hmm, well," the wolf-woman said in a sad way and took another long pull at her drink.

"Have you seen a falcon?" Griffin asked her. "Well, a falcon-girl?"

"Wait. Wait. Falcon-girl?" the wolf-woman said. "Like a girl with a falcon's head?"

"No!" Griff snapped. "A girl with falcon wings."

"Ooooh," the wolf-woman replied. "Hmm, no, I have nah," she murmured.

For some reason, Griffin could understand what she was saying despite the hullabaloo going on all around them. And she seemed to understand him just as well.

"Oi! _Tink_!" the wolf-woman barked. A woman came fluttering over. She was wearing a very skimpy green dress and had butterfly wings. _Butterflies_! thought Griffin. Pretentious moths! This is what these people admire? This is what they dress up as?!

"You seen a girl-falcon?" the wolf-woman asked her.

"Falcon-girl!" said Griff.

"Umm, nope!" the butterfly-girl replied. "Hey, Michael, you seen a gal with a falcon-head, kinda like one of those whatcha-call-it-Egyptian-type-idol-thingies?"

"She has falcon _wings_!" Griff screamed, causing himself to wince.

"Ya never said what kinda head she had, _chico_ ," a man commented. He had on a slick red jacket. His skin seemed to cling to his body and hang off of him in greyish-green floppy folds. Griffin tried not to stare, which his Mum told him was rude.

"She has my head - _mine_!" Griff exclaimed.

"Ouch," the man replied. "Poor girl ..."

He took a long swig from a drink in his hand; owl's weren't exactly known for their sense of smell, but Griffin was starting to think that that stuff everyone was swilling down was actually urine.

"She's my sister!" Griff explained.

The wolf-woman hummed. "Mmm ... a girl with a falcon-head -"

" _Wings_!"

"Would stick out, even here, lad," she said.

"The Night Queen would know!" Griff yelped.

"Hmm, the Night Queen. Nah. Nah. Nuuuu," the wolf-woman said, talking and downing grog simultaneously. It was disgusting, but also admirable, Griff thought.

"Nobody gets in to see the Night Queen," said butterfly-girl.

"No way. Nohow," the green man put in, drink pouring down his chin.

"I have _got_ to see her!" he begged.

"Nuh-uh," butterfly-girl replied. "Only the King of Fools can see the Night Queen."

"Wha ...? Who ... Who is the King of Fools?" Griffin asked.

The trio laughed in unison. "N'budy knows!"

Griffin wanted to scream at a pitch to blow their eardrums up.

"Welp, nobody knows _right now_!" the wolf-woman guffawed.

"Yah know how Carnival works, right, _amigo_?" the green man asked, slipping an arm around Griff's shoulders ... then he realized that it wasn't an arm, but the man's excess skin looping around him.

"Uuuuuh ..."

"Tha King of Fools is elected and den he go into see de Night Queen," said the green man. " _Comprendes_?"

"H-How?"

Suddenly, the group was distracted as the throngs of people pressing in around them parted like two waves and an enormous cake emerged like a mountain looming over them.

It was so bizarre Griff thought perhaps he was trapped in a dream. Or a nightmare ...

A woman stood atop the massive cake which was easily 20 feet high. She was gorgeous, long honey-colored hair swirling around her shapely body and a glimmering blue mask covering her face. Griffin was staring again ... to hell with Mum; he couldn't help himself.

 _OK, maybe not a nightmare_ ...

Then something very strange began to happen. Griffin could almost detect the very slightest sound, but he couldn't detect no sound at all. And suddenly, in a substantial radius surrounding the beautiful woman, it was completely devoid of sound.

It was so unsettling for Griffin, who depended primarily on sound. But he could sense this woman was siphoning the sound from the very air, like sucking moisture out of the atmosphere. Then rockets of colored light exploded from her hands into the sky. Griff had never seen fireworks before, but his Da had described them to his son. That relation was the closest the boy could come to describing this display. Balls of colored lights that seemed to crackle with electricity hovered around the woman. Then they collided together into one shimmering sphere that glimmered with rainbows like a gigantic soap bubble.

Griff's hear thumped hard as the crowd screamed. But no sound came from their million mouths; their sound was being converted to light. Colored light that had replaced invisible sound waves hovered in the air like heat.

Griff was deaf and it was terrifying.

Suddenly, the cake exploded. Cake and frosting sailed in every direction. The mob put their hands in the air as they were assailed by it.

The sound returned to the air as the crowd cheered. Griff's three new friends slapped him on the shoulders, (the wolf-woman literally) howling with glee. Griffin glanced around in confusion. He was covered in cake just like all the other insane people shouting around him. He winced as the sheer noise burned into his mind's eye. He was about to go deaf - and not because of the mystery woman's light-power.

"Lookit, lad, lookit!" the wolf-woman shouted right into his ear.

Griff unfolded his fist which he didn't realize was clenched. Inside his palm was the tiny figurine of an infant baby.

"He has the Child!" the butterfly-girl cheered. "Owl-boy has the Child!"

Hundreds of bodies pressed in on Griffin. The noise was incredible. He actually _wanted_ someone to siphon off the sound pressing in on his eardrums. His mind's eye was filled with blinding white light; it felt like his head would explode.

"It was inside the cake, _chico_!" he, somehow, heard the green-skinned man hiss in his other ear. He grabbed Griff's hand and pulled him up off the ground by one arm. "All hail Owl-boy, the King of Fools!" he cried.

The revelers of Carnival answered in a million voices.


	14. The Night Queen - Part 2

**Another Chapter about the bird-kiddos - Warren Worthington's grandchildren - and Nightcrawler's daughters, Talia and Nightshade. (You are definitely going to see more of these ladies!) All of these characters except for Talia belong to meeee! Talia Wagner belongs to Marvel.**

 **"Lullaby for a Stormy Night" - Vienna Teng. Thanks to my bud WoodenPaws for suggesting it.**

 **Thank you. Please read and review!**

 ** _Chapter XIV: The Night Queen – Part 2_**

Peregrine Worthington regained consciousness to the sound of crying. Not the sound of ugly crying – sobbing – the kind that stretches your face into weird shapes and fills your head with snot, but _pretty_ crying – the kind heroines in stories do, with twin streaks of tears elegantly running down their cheeks.

Perri tried to sit up, but the world tilted around her. Perri had never fainted before; her father told her birds couldn't. Then why had she been unconscious? Her memories were so fuzzy. She remembered something awful had happened. Bats were swirling everywhere, darker blotches against a dark night sky. Her brother Griffin was there … then?

She awoke here?

Where was here? And who was crying? Perri's vision still seemed blurry, like a faint glowing aura was hanging in the air around her. When she pawed at her eyes, however, she noticed the air _was_ glowing … sort of. Perri did not have echolocation like Griff, but she sensed she was inside a circular cavernous room. There were very strange markings on the walls – glyphs, like the ones carved on the sea-spires – which glowed cheerily providing a gentle light. Then she noticed they were not carved on the walls … They were _floating_ in the air around her.

 _Did I hit my head_? Perri wondered. _How hard_?

One glyph, glowing a faint blue, seemed to nudge her arm. Perri wanted to jump away, but it didn't hurt. She realized when she moved her hand, it gravitated towards her and she could control its movements. _Ah_. Like a torch.

Using the little light of the glyph, Peregrine waved her hand around to try and get her bearings. Yes, she was in a huge high-ceilinged room. There were beautiful tall windows high above her, too high to be reached by anything but air. Perri sensed this room was high in the sky. Its windows looked like slits of blue cut into the relative black tower room. The walls were of slick stone so no one could climb up them – No. The walls consisted of tiny bits of stone, some no bigger than Perri's pinkie-nail, painstakingly put together to form …

 _Ooooh_! Perri thought as she waved her strange little torch up and around. A mosaic. Mosaics. She could remember the mosaics that covered the gracious streets and plazas of Genosha when her parents took her there long ago.

These mosaics covered the walls of the circular room. Perri's wide violet eyes took in the pictures the mosaic made – a beautiful woman with long dark-red hair and a distractive headdress. She was flanked by another equally stunning woman, taller with bright green hair. There were smaller figures beneath them, both female, both with sleek indigo skin and bright amber eyes, one with dark-blue tresses and one with long, long bright-red plaits.

Peregrine frowned, grappling for understanding thru the thick fog in her brain. These people seemed familiar to her somehow. How? They almost seemed like friendly characters in stories she'd been told as a small child. Granted, Perri was usually too impatient to properly recall the stories her grandfather told her unless they included large swords or cool explosions. Sparrow was a far more attentive listener.

She noticed several floating glyphs assemble and, as if of one mind, rise to illuminate the figures pictured above all these Perri had viewed. She gasped and trembled a little. Magneto. Magnus. Pictured in vivid hues of violet, the color of royalty. He was one of the most powerful beings to ever exist. At his side was a gorgeously tall woman with odd bi-colored hair and another figure, resplendent in violet just like Magneto, but its face was obscured by a helmet crowned with fearsome horns like a stag.

Another sob broke into Perri's musings. There was a figure, a living one, huddled nearby. The glyphs avoided it, so she couldn't make out who – or what – it even was. She could tell it was obstructed by a long, long cloak that seemed to stretch across the floor of the tower and swallow it in blackness.

"H-Hello?" Perri said tentatively to the figure. The weeping, originating from inside the black hood, intensified at her greeting. "Uh, a-are you hurt?" she asked. The figure's heavy breathing seemed to hitch at her words. "I won't hurt you," Perri commented, a little disdainfully. Falcons weren't vultures. Falcons didn't hunt the sick or injured. "Don't be afraid …" she said, trying to sound soothing like her Mum when she was singing the kids to sleep. Perri wasn't very good at mothering; her Da hoped she would grow into it like a dress she was too short for.

The weeping voice seemed to hiccup. "The little bird peeps, 'Don't be afraid!'" the voice deep inside the hood stated. There was almost a sad amusement in its words. The voice was husky with tears, but Perri thought it might be female. "Listen to the little bird singing in the darkness to make itself less afraid!"

"I am _not_ afraid," Perri said, her head suddenly clearing. Nothing could make her crosser than this accusation. She was a falcon. An apex predator. She had absolutely nothing to fear …

Did she?

"Ah, she is a mighty hunter in her own skies. But time and destiny hunts us all down like an animal, doesn't it?" the voice continued.

Perri felt genuinely sorry for this person – despite whatever her brother Sparrow thought she wasn't without empathy – but she was beginning to think this person could be a bit touched in the head.

"Um, listen, I don't know exactly where I am," Perri explained impatiently. _Or how I got here_ , her aching head added. Her head was beginning to throb now, the way Sparrow's did sometimes. She was trying to remember how she got here, but the pain in her head seemed to be blocking her memories. "Perhaps if you help me I could help you too?"

The hood shifted a bit as a strange sound came from within it. It took Perri a moment to understand what the sound was – laughter without any mirth. It honestly sent a fearful chill down Perri's spine.

"My, my, the little bird believes she can help _ME_ ?"

The hooded figure turned to face Perri in a sudden lithe predatory movement. The face inside was a woman's … at least that's what Perri thought it was. The face swam up in front of the girl. It was dark blue; it would have been beautiful, but Peregrine could see glyphs _cut_ into the woman's cheeks and forehead. They glowed faintly just as the glyphs floating in the air did.

Perri, however, was distracted by all that when the woman locked eyes with her. Peregrine had heard about predators who could hypnotize their prey with the intensity of their stare, but Perri never thought she'd been at the receiving end of it. The woman's eyes were huge, round and bright amber; Perri could see no pupils. Perri felt the horrible ordeal all prey trapped in fear experience, rooted by a hunter's gaze while every nerve screamed to run.

She could see herself being consumed by those eyes and being forced to watch herself be torn apart as she stood there impotent and helpless.

"Don't fly away, little bird," the woman said. "Look into my eyes. Don't look away!" The woman's voice was commanding, but still rang with the gentle sadness of rain. "Now, you will do as I ask?"

"Exactly as you ask …" Peregrine said in a voice that didn't sound like her own. It sounded far away. Perri seemed to be watching herself from outside her own body as this woman commanded her.

"Then look what I hold in my hand."

Perri did as she was told. The woman's hand had three fingers, like Griff's, tipped in vicious claws. In her palm was a dead little bat. Its soft fur was tipped in silver; its wings were black as the night sky. Its poor little claws were drawn up to its small body in death.

"Look at it," the woman crooned. She began to weep again. "Death took her so swiftly. She will never fly again." Tears flowed down the woman's cheeks as she shut her eyes.

The spell was broken. Perri almost fell backwards, gasping. The memories came rushing back. Griffin had caught the little mammal, but he hadn't killed it. He had stunned it. Then he had teased Perri; then she had made to grab the bat and …

 _"_ _Oh_!" she whimpered, remembering. She had done the unthinkable.

"You … have killed a … sacred animal," the woman said between sobs.

"I-It was an accident!" Perri sputtered. "I swear it!"

"An accident? You didn't mean to kill her? Does that help the dead live again, little bird?" the woman asked tearfully. "Does an apology make that any different?"

"I-I …" Perri stammered, terrified.

There was a rustle as another woman appeared. She simply _appeared_ . She wasn't there and now she was. She hadn't flown here quickly, the way Perri's father would. The only thing that heralded her was light wisps of what seemed to be smoke curling around her.

She was shorter than the hooded woman, but seemed taller because she stood rigid and straight as the other woman was bowed over in sorrow. A perpetual scowl seemed carved on her face. She shared the other woman's indigo skin and amber eyes, but her skin was a lighter shade and her eyes had light brown pupils. Her hair was bright-red and so long its braids dragged along the floor behind her like heavy ropes.

"Oh, _please_ tell me you are not serious," the woman said in a brisk, hard voice.

"The inevitable tide of Fate has claimed another," the hooded figure replied. Her tears seemed to have no end. Perri thought of the countless prey she had caught and killed. She was never cruel, but she'd never felt sorry for it. At least, not _this_ sorry.

In fact, Peregrine had never seen anyone this sad before. Even Sparrow who was so useless at everything, it seemed, seemed to have some shame. This would have been embarrassing if Perri wasn't so terrified.

"Stop that blubbering!" the red-haired woman snapped at the other.

"Do you know the feeling of having life and suddenly then none?" the sad woman demanded.

"Apparently not," the other replied dryly. "I am very much alive."

The hooded woman shrugged. "The kiln of life either hardens us or breaks us."

"You are clearly broken," the other spoke sternly.

"And you were hardened long ago, sister …" the sad woman murmured, well, _sadly_. Perri wondered if she ever tired of it; she knew she would. That one very clear, straightforward thought floated around in the terrified fog clouding Peregrine's brain; she clung to it. _She_ would have to think clearly to get out of this situation alive.

Creativity, however, was never her strong suit. Solutions had always simply been provided for her fast and efficiently or she never had need of them. A predator like her was never challenged on her own turf – or her own skies as it were.

The red-haired woman snarled at her sister. "I am a hard woman. I am not embarrassed to say!" She brought her face down towards her sister, who Perri suspected was the elder, and said in a stringent voice: "Survival demands it. Others' survival depends upon on it! That was a lesson I learned as Queen Regent when you couldn't get your shit together to rule – to do what must be done!"

The elder sister began to cry again. "I feel my subjects' pain … their sadness." She pressed her six fingers to her temples and grimaced. "So much sadness. I experience every death that takes place here – six million people – their suffering, their pain. But worse, I feel every heart-ache of those living … those left behind. _God_ , it's been this way since Zafiro and John …" her words trailed off in a sob. Rivers seemed to flow down her cheeks and drip down her chin in a never-ending stream.

 _Zafiro_? What a strange name, Perri thought. She had never heard of it before. But she was more frightened than curious. The hard woman was shouting down her sister. Perhaps Perri could sneak away …? She tried to edge away around one of four fat columns supporting the towering ceiling. Pictures of Magneto and his Royal Family were carved into the smooth alabaster stone. Perri was too frantic to study them; she felt the desperation of a trapped bird, her heart hammering madly. She spread her silver wings and leapt upward. Yes! The tall windows seemed so close, ready to welcome her into the twilight sky.

Suddenly, she slammed into … nothing! Stunned, she reeled backwards. Frantically, the winged girl shot upward in desperation and almost knocked herself out on an invisible barrier. _What the hell_?! She tried again and again, each attempt more futile than the last, like a pigeon trapped under glass.

"Stop that!" the hard woman growled at her. Peregrine, terrified, crumpled to the floor. She had never been trapped before. Her heart seemed about to explode and her breathing came in short frantic sobs.

"This little bird killed a sacred animal," the sad woman explained, sniffling, holding up the dead bat like a heartbroken child for her sister's inspection.

The hard woman eyed Perri, unimpressed, with her brown-on-amber eyes. "Hmm … falcon," she said in a disdainful voice. She turned back on the hooded woman. "Those are old ways from barbaric times. Human superstition. The Rogue Queen, your predecessor, banished those laws."

"Not this one …" her sister said softly.

A massive cheering sound went up from somewhere outside and Perri glanced up and around, terrified. " _Noise_ …!" the hard woman snarled angrily, whirling around like an angry wolf.

"Carnival," her sister sniffed, stroking the little bat's cooling fur.

Of course! thought Perri. Griff had been pestering her about it. Then she was on Genosha. But how? And why couldn't she fly properly? And who were these women? Like the mosaic pictures, they seemed familiar to her, like fuzzy memories from her earliest childhood days.

"They insist on seeing their _Queen_ ," the hard woman hissed, spitting out the title like a bad taste in her mouth. "To bless the celebration."

"What is there to celebrate, Nightshade?" her sister said, now gently touching the little animal's claws.

"Just show yourself to them! Can you manage that one duty, Talia? It is the one task the Queen Regent can't do for you," the hard woman replied in a mocking tone. "They are _your_ people, after all. You feel their pain, don't you?"

The sad woman, Talia, seemed to nod. She didn't seem to notice the jeer in her sister's voice. Talia straightened and Perri realized how tall she actually was as she walked past the girl, her long black veil trailing the floor. She towered over her sister too.

The memories came rushing back to Peregrine's aching head: a tall woman with sad amber eyes and a cloak that covered all but her blue face. When she was barely three years old, Perri remembered her father flying his daughter up to the tallest tower in Genosha which spilled over with hovering, darting bats and presenting his firstborn to this strange, sad woman – the Night Queen!

The Night Queen, her long cloak covering almost the entire floor of the tower, walked around, seeming to float and a door simply appeared in the tower wall, just as the angry red-haired woman had simply appeared there.

 _Freedom_! Perri's instincts screamed at her. She darted with falcon speed at the door, but crashed into the invisible barrier again. _Dammit_!

The Night Queen, her back to Perri and her sister, walked out on a balcony. She held up a hand and made a sign, holding up her index and middle fingers together. Thousands of voices erupted in celebration below.

Perri made out a message in the sea of voices raised in jubilation: "The Fool! The Fool! The King of Fools!" the six million revelers shouted in unison. Perri winced at the sheer sound hammering around the tower. She could only imagine how Griff, with his super-sensitive hearing, would suffer here. "Our Queen, we bring you the King of Fools!"

"Here he is, then," the Night Queen's sister, the Queen Regent spoke up behind her. Perri turned at the sound of her voice and gasped in fear. The Queen Regent had her claws, the same fierce claws as her sister, in Griffin's arm, but Perri's brother didn't struggle. His round green eyes were trained on his sister, sending her a silent message: _I have come to save you!_

Griff looked … _different_. He was wearing colorful rags tipped in jingling bells. What seemed most different about him was his swagger – his arrogance that made him so daring and reckless – seemed completely gone. He just looked like a scared little boy with big eyes and tousled curls.

Perri was beginning to think this was all some weird dream she was trapped inside.

 _Wake up! Wake up! Wake up, please!_ But Perri couldn't wake up, curled up safely next to her Mum and siblings.

"Well, you have come to make the Night Queen laugh," the Queen Regent said to him with a sneer. Perri looked at her; she was sure the Regent was joking – or she would have been if this hard, cold woman seemed capable of humor. But she seemed to have as much of the propensity for laughter as her sorrowful sister.

Perri's eyes widened. The Queen Regent's demand was indeed as serious and real as this world Peregrine seemed trapped inside.

Back home, Griff was a natural clown. He joked he had plenty of inspiration for comedic material – his slightly dense sister, his underachieving brother, his own fat fluffy self. But now … he couldn't say a word in the face of the sad, sad Night Queen who could feel only pain, no joy.

Griffin was frozen. He couldn't speak or move. He was as taken in by her wide amber eyes as Perri had been. Maybe _that_ was the funny thing, Perri thought, but she, like everyone else here, couldn't utter a sound of happiness. The Night Queen was too sad; the Regent was too cold. Perri and her brother were too frightened.

The Night Queen bowed her head and closed her eyes. "Well, you didn't even try …" she murmured to Griffin.

Peregrine guessed this had been some sort of test and Griff had failed it. What were the two women going to do to them now? She glanced desperately at her brother. Now, they were both in the soup. Why the hell had he tried to follow her?

Suddenly, Griff seemed to find his voice: "W-Wait!" he stammered.

The Night Queen turned around slowly, her expression puzzled. An expression that wasn't sorrowful made her appear so different, Perri thought.

"You had your chance for an audience with the Queen!" the Regent snapped, snatching up his arm. "You were to make her laugh and you failed … _just like all the others_ ," she added in an undertone that sounded almost … sad. Like her sister, Perri noticed how different the Regent appeared when her expression wasn't hard and cold. "Now whatever request you had for her cannot be granted."

"N-No!" Griff spluttered, his green eyes filling with tears. "P-Please! Listen to me!"

The Regent looked ready to tear him apart, but Griffin began to sing in a high clear voice:

" _Little child, be not afraid, The rain pounds harsh against the glass, Like an unwanted stranger, There is no danger, I am here tonight; Little child, Be not afraid, Though thunder explodes, And lightning flash, Illuminates your tearstained face, I am here tonight_ …"

Perri was amazed. It was the lullaby their Mum sang to them in the aerie; the same lullaby her Mum, Gran'ma Moira, had sung to her when she was a child. She had no idea someone like Griff would even recall such a thing.

It seemed to have the same shocking effect on the Night Queen and the Regent. They looked bewildered at the boy. "How … do you … know … that song?" the Night Queen stammered out.

Griff glanced at Perri and she summoned the courage to nod at her brother. "M-Mum taught it to us," he explained timidly. "When we were little."

The Night Queen gazed down at the small fluffy boy and something amazing happened. She stopped crying. It was like watching a creek dry up in the summer. The rivulets on her cheeks stopping running, leaving two glistening streaks behind. She wiped them away with her sleeve and stared at him.

"I shall grant your request," she said softly.

"B-But, sister –!" the Regent sputtered. "He didn't –!"

"God knows he's done more than any other has even come close to," the Queen murmured wonderingly. Her amber eyes seemed clearer, like someone in great pain who finally finds relief. She studied Griffin in awe as if trying to puzzle out how he had done it – how this small strange boy had suddenly lifted this tremendous burden of sadness from her soul. "What do you desire, little one?"

"Free my sister!" Griff demanded quickly before the Queen could change her mind.

The Queen's eyes narrowed and she suddenly looked like a terrifying predator again. "She took a life. Nothing you can do can restore that, little one."

"It wasn't her fault!" he gasped. "I-I teased her; I was showing off. I was stupid! Take me in her place!"

But the Queen would not have it. She shut her eyes, shaking her head.

"The Queen has spoken her judgment, Fool!" the Regent growled, grabbing Griffin so hard Perri winced as her claws sank into his arm.

"Destiny cannot be reversed," the Queen spoke sadly. Perri was afraid she would start crying again, but she pushed on bravely. "Fate cannot be changed. But …"

She gazed thoughtfully at Peregrine. "Maybe another …"

"The punishment for killing a bat is death," the Night Queen said. Griff broke free from the Regent, somehow, and clung to his sister. Both children trembled.

"But … if you were to execute the little bird, sister, what would that gain us?" the Regent said, sharing her sister's thoughtful look. "A dead bat and a dead bird."

"Hmm …" the Night Queen hummed. "One little bat will not make the migration this year … But one little bird will."

The Night Queen's long elegant claws took Perri's face in her hands. "Look into my eyes, little bird …"

Perri was arrested by that amber gaze; she couldn't move. She couldn't do anything unless the Night Queen ordered her to. The Night Queen opened her mouth and _sang_. The song filled Peregrine's mind with images – colors and shapes turning into a landscape, flying Perri away across the ocean to a land full of blossoming pink trees and open green plains and then away over snowy mountain peaks to a land of tall coniferous forests and rushing waterfalls.

As the song filled her mind with a map, hundreds, thousands, millions of bats crowded into the Night Queen's tower, all of them listening to her haunting call with their tall ears, all of them absorbing her orders, following her demands. They were no longer singular beings; they were extensions of the Night Queen, just as Peregrine was herself.

"Now go, my children, go and do my bidding; follow my orders and patrol my borders and spread my song!" she cried out, her call reaching a pitch so high only the bats could listen – and Griffin who clasped his hands over his ears and shrieked in agony. Peregrine could no longer hear the Night Queen's song, but her amber eyes told the girl exactly her intent. The Night Queen had possessed Perri and was controlling her mind just as she was her bats. They would do her bidding without question.

"You are my spies; you are my eyes," Talia, the Night Queen, sang out. "Now go into the night now … _Fly_!"


	15. Migration

**Here weego! Peregrine and the bats! Bats are my favorite mammals, after cats - and humans, I guess! Peregrine is my own personal character. Hope ya like!**

 **Please review and let me know how I'm doing, OK?**

 **"No Roots" - Alice Merton. It's a stinkin' cool song.**

 **-Cheers, Maria**

 ** _Chapter XV: Migration_**

 _ **I got no roots, but my home was never on the ground**_ ...

 **-Alice Merton, "No Roots"**

Peregrine flew alongside the bat colony, her falcon plumage a bright silver flash in the sky-full of black wings, only a shade darker than the night sky. For the first time, she envied how silently the bats flew; she was only a wing-beat from a young female, but she couldn't even detect the little mammal's powerful wings pumping strongly. If the tables had been turned, and she was this animal's prey, she would have been very nervous indeed. Here was a hunter who could fly almost completely undetected.

She could sense the colony's own nervousness at flying with a natural predator such as herself, but they didn't swerve from their course or try to elude her – Perri was on their millennia-old migration route.

Why?

Perri's head gave a throb in response to that question. In the past few hours, the girl had discovered and learned more than she had in her whole previous 14 years it seemed. For one, the Night Queen was controlling Peregrine's mind – not like she was a drooling brainwashed zombie, but she could feel the Night Queen's presence in the back of her head, like an afterthought. It nudged her gently in the right direction if she strayed even a wing-beat off course. Peregrine had her memories, personality, powers and functions, but she knew the Night Queen controlled all her decisions, even her subconscious ones.

For example, Perri had tried multiple times to simply fly home, but her wings always turned her in the opposite direction. Finally, she gave up, tears streaming down her face, making pearls of water flying thru the air.

Where was she going?

The mental map the Night Queen had sung into her head swam up in her mind. Across a vast ocean to a land of pink-blossoming trees, over snowy mountains to a forest by a distant sea – it was the bats' ancient migration route. Like Peregrine, the Night Queen controlled them too. She saw thru their eyes, just as Perri sensed the Night Queen could see, hear, smell and touch everything Peregrine encountered.

Why?

What was the Night Queen searching for? Peregrine wondered. When she asked herself that question, all Perri saw in her mind was a wall of blank bluish-grey. She sensed this was the Night Queen's response to her question. That and a horrific sense of dread …

The Night Queen was searching for something and using Peregrine's eyes and those of millions, if not billions, of bats to find it.

But what? _How will I know when I find it_? Perri wondered.

 _You will know_ … a gentle thought seemed to chime in her head. Peregrine shivered.

Perri's troubled thoughts returned to her family. Would she ever see them again? Her tears began to flow faster and she felt a hitch in her chest. Ironic how the Night Queen's seemingly never-ending flow of tears had finally ceased as Perri set off on her quest.

And now Perri herself, the fearsome falcon, couldn't stop crying.

 _Mum, Da, Griff, Sparrow, Gran'pa_ … their faces swam up in Perri's head as she angrily swiped tears away. _Baby, baby, crybaby, cry_ … she remembered teasing her weak baby brother Sparrow with the chant. Now it was on her. Thank God Griffin wasn't here to see her –

"Perri, wait up!" she heard her brother call.

"Speak of the Devil," Perri muttered darkly, rubbing harder at her eyes.

Indeed, Griffin was winging his way rapidly towards his sister. Perri wasn't sure if she was overjoyed to see her little brother or if she wanted to telekinetically blow him into oblivion.

It was his fault she was in this mess, but also his quick thinking had spared her life.

She watched the boy pull up sharply in surprise when he saw her face, his rust-colored wings flapping madly. "A-Are you … _crying_?" he asked in a whisper. For once he wasn't wearing his blindfold and his green eyes were wide. Crying was for babies, little chicks who needed their mummies, not mighty hunters, not Peregrine Worthington. Perri couldn't remember doing it; she didn't think she could.

"Just go 'way, Griff," she snarled, angry, sad and humiliated all at the same time at him finding her this way.

"No!" he cried, diving after his sister. He slammed into an invisible wall separating him from her. He tried another maneuver, but he crashed into the invisible barrier again.

"It won't work, Griff. You can't follow me," Perri murmured. "It's the Night Queen." Even now, Perri felt that nudge in her mind that prodded her on after the bats. _Keep moving. Keep moving_. It was the Night Queen controlling her mind and movements. If she didn't move on soon the ringing in her ears would become unbearable. "She's set up these ... barriers. It's like a jet-stream. I can't fly out of it. Nothing can fly into it. I'm ..."

 _Trapped_. But she couldn't say the horrible word, the word every avian feared, out loud.

Griff kept flying up and tapping futilely against the invisible barrier surrounding his sister. It was true; he couldn't follow her.

Perri eyed her brother miserably. There was absolutely nothing she could do. _Come along. Keep moving_ , the "voice" in her head tugged at her wings. Peregrine glided away from Griffin; she had no choice. Tears coursed down her face.

"Perri!" Griffin screamed after her, his wings battering the air. " _Peregrine_!" he shrieked louder. She, however, didn't glance back. She wanted to; she wanted to gaze at her brother as long as she liked, because how could she know if she'd ever see him again? She wanted to imprint the image of his freckled face in her brain so she could never forget it, but she couldn't even turn her head to look back at him.

She knew Griffin was crying now. Typically, she would have bemoaned the fact she couldn't watch him cry because she couldn't tease him. But now she just wanted to catch one last glance of his face, even if it were covered in tears, because she loved him. He was her brother. _And I'll never see him again_ ... The pain in her chest dug its way into her heart.

Suddenly, a sound filled her ears. It was so beautiful, even the bats gave pause, hovering as one in a massive black cloud. Griffin was singing, reaching out to his sister in the only way he knew. The Night Queen's telekinetic barriers were formidable, but they couldn't cancel out Griff's sweet voice.

Just like their Mum, Siryn, his song filled Peregrine's head with her deepest desire - an image popped in her mind; she was wrapped up in the arms and wings of her Da and Gran'pa and Griffin and Sparrow and Mum was kissing her on the forehead, ruffling Perri's feathery hair the way she always did.

Perri would have scoffed at this sentiment earlier, but now she held onto this image Griffin's song placed in her brain. It gave strength to her wings and enabled her to smile thru her tears as the Night Queen's voice forced Peregrine down the bats' ancient migration route.

She was the first with falcon wings to take this path.

 **###**

Perri was in shock for the first few leagues of the journey. Her wings worked mechanically, pulsing steadily over the rippling waters of the ocean below where she watched the shadowy forms of humpback whales swimming beneath the surface. They were migrating too on a route as old as the bats' and in the sea, an expanse as vast as the sky.

The rest of Peregrine's body worked mechanically too. _Fly, eat, rest, fly again,_ the gentle little voice in her head (which she knew was in fact the Night Queen's control) chimed, telling her what to do and when to do it. Her brain, meanwhile, was one big stunned blank. The necessities of feeding, flying and sleeping were actually welcome distractions.

The little voice never made Perri fly to exhaustion and it alloted her enough time to hunt at dawn and at dusk. Right now, in her state of severe shock, that was the hardest part of Peregrine's situation. She was a diurnal creature, after all. The bats' nocturnal schedule seemed alien to her. The bats flew by moonlight or by the stars sparkling silently overhead. Tom, Perri's father, would tell his children he could even listen to the stars his hearing was so keen, but Perri always thought he was joking.

Now, she wondered, as she gazed up at the bright constellations guiding the bats on their trek, if it could be true. _Everything has an echo, little bird_ , the voice peeped in her head. _And sound goes on and on, bouncing from surface to surface, sailing thru the infinity of space until it meets someone who will listen_ ...

The Night Queen was communicating with Perri. "Where am I going?" Perri asked desperately. "Why? What am I looking for?"

But the Voice was silent.

Daytime was the most difficult. Peregrine fidgeted in a cave or seaside nook or some tiny wayward island that offered sanctuary from the endless expanse of sea. The black volcanic rock jutted out of the ocean in sporadic little patches of land barely big enough to house the migrating colony and quite inhospitable with spraying spewing geysers and frowning-faced iguanas clinging to the rocky beaches. The bats roosted upside-down shoulder-to-shoulder on whatever ledges they could find, their tiny claws scratching the pock-marked black rock - but there was always enough room, it seemed, for the colony to give Perri a healthy berth.

The bats were a functioning efficient community, not a thoughtless horde, another trait Perri had never acknowledged and now marveled at. The colony was comprised of all females and their juvenile offspring. They would rendezvous with their mates far to the North at their destination. The bats had a highly sophisticated hierarchy with elder females leading the way and speedy fliers scouting ahead for threats and obstacles. Slower, aging females and the youngest bats set the pace and every female looked out for all the little ones, even those not their own to the point where it was hard to tell which baby belonged to which mum.

This sort of communal lifestyle seemed so unusual to Perri. Her parents and Gran'pa were loving and supportive, but she definitely had more of a rivalry with her siblings than camaraderie. This was natural in raptors in the wild, the elder chicks bullying the smallest ones for attention and resources. Perri hadn't thought much of weaklings like Sparrow who just seemed to take up space.

The bat colony, however, seemed to prioritize the weak, helpless and aging, the slow and sickly. It made no sense to her.

 _This is how a society functions_ , the Voice would usually chime in when Perri pondered this. _Civilization is created thru compassion and empathy_.

But this made no sense to Peregrine. Wouldn't a social unit be more efficient by neglecting the weak?

 _Why can't you tell me something useful_? Perri would ask the Voice impatiently. _Like what the hell I'm doing here_?

Even so, it struck Perri as both fascinating (she had always considered bats and other weaker animals unthinking brutes) and something to be envied.

She was following along on the same migration route by the Night Queen's command, but the bats weren't happy she was with them. It was apparent she wasn't welcome here. Perri didn't have echolocation like Griff, so she couldn't communicate with the bats. Not that it mattered. A few daring juveniles swerved towards her for a better look sometimes, as she was quite the curiosity she was sure, only to be quickly hustled away by their protective elders. The message was clear: Peregrine's silver raptor wings said it all - _Predator_. _Stay away_.

By the third day, homesickness and loneliness was starting to wear away at Peregrine. The journey wasn't an easy one and, at first, Peregrine simply flung herself down on whatever scrap of land the colony roosted on at the end of the night's flight - falling into a hard sleep without even grooming her wings of the sea spray (something her Da would have definitely disapproved of). Perri had falcon wings and falcon's aren't endurance fliers.

For all her bemused disdain of bat society, ironically, Peregrine, the fastest flier in the sky, was grateful the slowest set the pace. Perri still had blistering speed at a sprint, but the migration was teaching her a hard lesson: to pace herself and preserve her energy. For a frenetic racer like her, this was pure, but necessary, torture.

Nevertheless, dawn found the falcon-girl exhausted from the night's journey. But she never slept soundly; she would awaken to almost blinding sunlight shining full in her face as the colony slumbered peacefully around her. She was restless, fitful, uncomfortable and she knew why.

Back home, Perri almost abhorred her brothers' company, pesky things. But there was always a sibling to snuggle up to in the aerie nest, a friendly heartbeat nearby that offered comfort. Here she was utterly alone, even though she was surrounded by rustling bats nestled with their shoulders touching affectionately. She was a bright island of silver wings in a venerable sea of black. All alone in the most crowded place she had ever been.

By the fourth day, she started talking to herself, something only crazy people did, her Mum would often mutter to her own self. The fifth sunset found her talking to the Voice in her head. The Voice knew a lot and they had interesting conversations, though the Voice used funny words like "relativity" and would lapse into long monologues on "Time and Space and Destiny." It was during these times Peregrine missed her brothers most.

At this point in a lecture in the Worthington family, Sparrow would begin to get distracted by patterns in the landscape below and Griff would start to make rude noises to make Perri laugh.

Now, there was only her - a lonely little falcon. _I miss them. Griffin's jokes. Sparrow's stupid ideas. Da's goofiness and Mum's thoughtful attentiveness. And Gran'pa_ ... the lump in her throat choked her. Her shock was beginning to ebb away as the reality of her situation set in. She remembered snuggling into her Gran'pa's snowy-white wings and snoozing the night away. He had always been so proud of his only granddaughter since she looked so much like his wife, Gran'ma Betsy. _What would he think of me now_? she wondered, examining her ragged unkempt wingtip.

She noticed a group of adolescent bats playing sky-tag, nudging one another along playfully, and, driven by lonely desperation, Perri attempted to join in their game. Dipping and diving after them would require precious energy she needed for the night's flight, but she was willing to sacrifice it for a little company. Besides, with her falcon wings she was certain she could win a silly game with some bat kits.

Perri edged closer and the juveniles regarded her with bright eyes. Being so young and untested, the young ones generally seemed to think of her more as a novelty than a potential threat. Like all youngsters, they loved showing off.

The biggest of the truants, a sleek-winged young male, dipped his wings in a teasing way towards her and Peregrine took up the challenge, diving after him in a vertical race. This was great! And the bat was fast - much faster than Peregrine expected - faster than Griff, even. _But not as fast as me_! she thought, ducking her head and folding her wings to streamline herself. Nobody, bat or not, could beat a falcon's dive.

Perri was about to go into a stoop against her opponent, when a flash of black distracted her from the race. It was a colony elder, fluttering frantically at the side of Perri's head, gnashing her sharp little teeth at the falcon-girl.

"Hey! Lemme be!" Perri cried. "I wasn't doing anything wrong!"

The old bat gave her a final swat on the head before she turned to the wayward youngster who had dared play with the outcast and chased him away, scolding him in a voice so high-pitched Perri couldn't hear it.

Perri sighed as the other young bats flew away. Alone again. Naturally.

After a terrible night's flight, dawn showed itself in pinkish-grey streaks on the horizon of monotonous black sea. Perri had never welcomed a sight more. Her shoulders ached terribly and her wings just felt numb.

The colony alighted on some godforsaken patch of land in the midst of the spraying sea. Perri almost crashed onto the island and was asleep nearly before she landed.

 **###**

She awoke groggily. She almost wished she was a bat that could sleep soundly during the day and leave her refreshed and ready to fly at dusk. Perri's chronic fatigue forced her into a fitful sleep full of horrid nightmares where salty water poured from the Night Queen's eyes and mouth. When her tears turned to blood, Peregrine started awake.

Perri was face-to-face with an iguana. The reptile had an odd fixed expression of being both disdainful and bored, as if _looking_ at Peregrine was wasting too much of his precious time. His slimy pink tongue edged its way curiously out of his maw.

Yuck! Her Da had explained that reptiles and birds were actually related, having sprung from the same lizard-like ancestor. However, Perri always found the scaly animals repulsive. They didn't even lay proper hard-shelled eggs ... Of course, Peregrine and her brothers had come out of their Mum's belly like a mammal, but still ... reptiles were so gross, in her opinion.

The iguana wasn't dangerous, to Perri anyway, so she decided to ignore the lizard. She wished it would do the same for her; it kept staring at her rudely with its strange sleepy eyes.

She stretched out her stiff wings. Even her feathers seemed to ache. They appeared ratty; how ashamed Tom, who taught his children to groom fastidiously and take pride in their wings, would be. But Perri just felt too exhausted to clean herself.

The sun had just set, turning the emerald-green ocean to a liquid-blue coloration. _Cerulean_ , that's what Sparrow would call it. Sparrow loved sunsets and he described them with the funniest words. Perri could only imagine how much he would enjoy this view, she thought with a sharp pang in her heart. Peregrine wished she wasn't too worn out and confused to relish it.

Suddenly, her purple falcon eyes spied something. The rude iguana that had stared at her was creeping up on a bat sentry roosting on a nearby volcanic rock. The colony posted look-outs who rotated stations throughout the day's rest so all of them could get some sleep.

This sentry was nodding off into a doze, it appeared, and the iguana, who would welcome an easy meal such as this, was taking advantage of her lack of vigilance.

Perri simply reacted; she didn't even consider what she was doing. A pinkish aura formed around her hands and the halo of light took the shape of a falcon, rocketing towards the predatory lizard. It knocked the iguana off its perch and into a nearby tidal pool with a loud splash that woke the rest of the roosting colony, including the snoozing lookout. For the first time in history, perhaps, an iguana actually looked surprised as it scurried out of the pool and away up a rock in a very undignified fashion.

Peregrine wanted to laugh and so she did; it was funny. The first time she had laughed or felt cheerful since leaving the Home Island. The bats seemed to be watching her as one, their black-jeweled eyes studying her intently.

"Well, you're welcome," Perri said to them, flushing with embarrassment and indignation a bit as her own gaiety and the bats' sober reaction respectively.

Why had she done it? she wondered. Didn't the unwary bat deserve to be eaten? Isn't that how nature worked? The strong and smart survived. The weak and stupid perished as they should, Perri thought. No weakling should pass on its genes to the next generation.

Or had she acted selfishly, trying to win the colony's approval - to be seen as more than a shunned outsider? _Am I that desperate for company_? she mused.

 _The answer is quite simple, my dear_ , the Voice replied cheerfully. _You acted on instinct._

"Well, nice to hear from you again," Perri grumped.

But things did change somewhat for the young falcon-girl. The colony allowed her to fly within the flock now. She wasn't chased away for getting too close to the young 'uns. Best of all, she could roost with the bats during the day, feeling a friendly shoulder brushing her own and a thousand heartbeats nearby.

If anything, she became an asset to the colony. No longer viewing her as a threat, the bats now saw her as protector. Her formidable-looking presence could scare off potential predators. The Night Queen's shields kept anything sentient from hunting her bats, but natural threats like hawks and owls were still a danger to the migrating colony.

Dawn, during the colony's confusion to find a roost, was when danger often reared up at the flock. Gyrfalcons and goshawks were pretty bad, attracted from their seaside cliffs towards the swarming swirling black cloud of bats. Gyrfalcons are fast, but they've got nothing on a peregrine's speed - one Peregrine in particular. Perri watched one morning as the flock patrolled for a spot to land as a sneaky gyrfalcon tried to slip up on a straggling young bat. She served the snowy bird a telekinetic punch, similar to what she gave the iguana ... and she felt a rush of pride. She was getting pretty good at this. The gyrfalcon wasn't exactly a slow-moving target.

 _I wonder if Gran'ma Betsy was this good_? she mused.

 _I don't know about your Gran'ma Betsy_ , the Voice countered. _But your Aunt Becky was much better_.

 _Hmph_! thought Perri. Well, still - a gyrfalcon!

At any rate, word travels fast in the animal world. From then on, raptors let the bat migration alone.

Life wasn't good, exactly - Perri still ached for her family every waking moment - but it was a bit better.

One evening, she felt a sense of urgency amongst her traveling companions. The migrating flock was pressing on, flying quickly, instead of setting its usual grinding, but steady pace. Peregrine had to fly hard and fast, but she realized she was stronger now. The grueling journey had strengthened her wings. She thought of her grandfather's soaring eagle's wings and shyly wondered what Warren would think of her now? Her silver falcon wings weren't exactly endurance fliers, but her stamina had certainly increased over the past ...

How long had it even been since she left the Home Island? she wondered.

The Voice whispered: _Three weeks. Four days. Seven hours. Forty minutes and seven seconds._

Yes, well.

Peregrine could sense the colony's anticipation pulling at her own wings, their excitement sucking her forward like a vacuum. Her own heart hammered and not just from exertion. The migration was coming upon something _big_. Perri could sense it in her very cells.

Each and every bat in the colony, hundreds, thousands, opened their mouths as one and sang out sound so high-pitched Perri couldn't hear. Caught up in the moment, Peregrine emitted a burst of pure telekinetic energy in a joyful psionic burst. To her amazement, the burst rippled out from her in a pinkish wave and bounced an image back into her mind in a way very similar to echolocation. A falcon using echolocation. Think of that!

The image that bounced back to Perri made her heart almost break with happiness. _Land_! Not the raggedy-ass little scraps that could barely be called an island, but blessed proper firmament! A venerable continent swam up in her mind. Her wings pulsed faster with the rhythm of the colony as she felt the excitement that grips every weary traveler at the sight of land. She could see every tree, every rock, every blade of grass in her mind's eye. How amazing!

Even all that, however, could not prepare her for actually seeing the land the colony approached. It swept underneath their wings like an enormous carpet. It was edged with beaches crowded with bleating bellowing fur-seals who were fighting, breeding, playing and dashing in-and-out of the roaring surf. Perri wanted to look as long as she liked, but now the colony was passing over the sweepingly high cliffs that almost clipped her wingtips they rose up so close to the flock. Puffins and terns spiraled and screamed all around the little pockets in the cliff-face. Just like back on the Home Island!

But now the migration was pressing on to the very top of the cliffs where a beautiful green land spread out like a jewel. " _Ooooh_!" Perri breathed, feeling the fatigue fall from her wings in sheer joy. This country was not at all like the downs back on the Home Island full of pastel greens and the grey-blue colors of the sea.

This land seemed to shimmer like a gem. The grass here was bright green and waved high in the wind and the sky was as blue as a sapphire. But the trees here stole the show. They were very oddly-shaped with flat tops, but their blossoms! They were pink and fell away in the seemingly constant breeze in showers of petals. It looked like the land was covered in soft-pink snowflakes.

This land - what could it be? Perri could only wonder as her violet eyes feasted on the banquet of colorful sights.

The Voice said softly in her head: _Wakanda Askani_.


	16. Apocalypse Returns

**These characters belong to Marvel ... except for Nightshade and Tom.**

 **Best, Maria**

 _ **Chapter XVI: Apocalypse Returns**_

Warren Worthington trimmed his wings as he dove between the glimmering buildings of Genosha. Revelers stopped to point in awe at the winged man as he flew past. Fliers weren't unheard of on Genosha by any means, but one with such an impressive wingspan as Angel and with such outstanding skills was certainly a sight to behold, even here where supernatural powers were commonplace. Warren's maneuverability was the truly astounding thing to see. His 18-foot wingspan could fold into tight spaces between the city towers that shimmered blue with psionic power.

He allowed himself a wry chuckle, despite his troubled thoughts, as he recalled flying competitions with his old colleagues in the X-Men, Storm and Rogue. Both women were supremely powerful heroes and talented fliers in their own right, but even they couldn't outmaneuver Warren.

Hold onto that thought, he told himself. Put some levity into the situation. Do not allow yourself to be mired down in panic and despair. Stop. Think. Reason. Don't allow your emotions to entangle you. These were rules hammered into him as a young man, when he first joined the X-Men as a teenager.

His eagle-eyes roved the streets below for any sign of his granddaughter. From his position on the city skyline, the blue lines of psionic energy that cobbled the streets together seemed to form writing in ancient hieroglyphics underneath his white wings.

It's hard though, a voice seemed to whisper thru his brain. _Perri could be dead now, her face trampled in the mud …_

 _Like Elizabeth …_

He started and cursed as his wingtip brushed against a psionic building. Some partiers shrieked. Damn he was out of shape – mentally. Chasing three precocious little fliers kept Angel in peak flying condition, but his brain was out of practice combat-wise. Now, the old anxiety was pushing itself to the forefront of his thoughts. Trying to consume him. Peregrine, small and helpless, fighting for her life …

Frustration boiled over in his mind. _Tom_! he called out telepathically, praying his son "heard" him.

Tom was not a planner. He acted on instinct. A lot like his father. A tactician Warren was not. That was always Cyclops' game. And Storm's. However, Warren's first instinct was not to bolt in the direction of danger. Tom had a falcon's speed and an owl's almost mind-reading sense of hearing. Nothing on the planet was faster than his son. Which meant Tom would reach whatever had dared threaten his daughter, and Warren's granddaughter, first.

Warren wasn't at all sure which was scarier – his only granddaughter in danger or his only son diving straight into it.

 _Dad_! Warren felt his son's telepathic message in his mind. Angel felt the tension in his chest ease up a bit. Even in the direst circumstances, Warren was amazed by how just feeling his son's psychic presence in his mind filled him with such joy and contentment. Angel could remember only too well when his mind was released from Apocalypse's vise-like control, thanks in no small part to Tom himself, how he had felt to discover his son, who Warren had last seen as an infant, was alive and well and Warren himself was a grandfather now. That feeling of sheer happiness was like nothing he had ever experienced before … or probably ever would.

 _I've tracked Peregrine_! Tom reported psychically to his father. _She was … teleported, somehow, to the heart of the city._

Warren was still amazed by what a powerful mutant his son was. It really shouldn't have, considering who his mother was, but very few telepaths could track someone mentally at such a long-range as Tom had his daughter. And Tom had had to navigate solely via telepathy. The sounds of Carnival were scrambling his son's echolocation.

 _Talia_? Warren demanded, latching onto his son's psychic prompt and his gut instinct.

Talia Wagner, the monarch of Genosha, called "The Night Queen" by her people, was one of the most powerful beings on the planet, much like her mother Wanda Maximoff. Talia had the powers of teleportation, telekinetic shields and echolocation at her disposal. Her most feared and mysterious gift, however, was the power of mind-possession. Her father, Nightcrawler, was a former X-Man and Warren's close colleague. Warren could think of no one who would make a better tutor for his telekinetic/echolocation-gifted grandchildren than Tally – nor could he imagine a worse enemy.

 _I think so_ … Tom replied, his "voice" frantic in Warren's head. I-It's a misunderstanding! _Dad, it must be! Peregrine has offended her terribly, I think … Oh_! Tom's panicked thoughts tumbled over one another, making Warren slightly dizzy. It was futile telling his son to slow down. Tom never did anything slowly.

 _Son, please, stop panicking_! Warren commanded him. Damn, he was awful at barking out orders, telepathically or not. Angel just functioned better as a soldier, carrying out his duties dictated by others and being supportive of his comrades. _We will find Peregrine, OK_? he added. As a young man, he would have sneered at this empty comfort, but now he had to force himself to believe it, to keep fear from overwhelming him.

 _The hell we will_! Tom responded. _I am in the Night Queen's tower now._

Warren dropped a few feet in astonishment. _Tom_! he "shouted." _I know Tally is one of your best friends. Please do NOT make her into your enemy! Because she will become your worst nightmare! She is one of the most powerful beings on the Earth!_

 _And if she's hurt one of my chicks, she'll be one of the deadest_ , Tom muttered in his father's brain and then went silent.

 _Idiot! I love you, son, but you're an idiot_! Warren screamed mentally, but there was no reply. It was no use. Tom was a typical raptor parent. It didn't matter what threatened his babies, a lion or an insanely powerful mutant, Tom would throw himself between his chicks and whatever danger reared itself at them.

And to be honest, Warren was really no better. To hell with alliances, reason and his oath to never harm another living thing – just imaging something or someone harming his precious granddaughter blinded him with rage.

Warren slammed into a wall. Well, literally blinded? No. An invisible barrier had immediately surrounded the Night Queen's tower at Angel's approach – Talia's telekinetic shield. He wasn't getting inside. But Tom already was. Nothing, not even Talia's power, could beat Tom's speed.

Warren couldn't decide if this was a blessing or a curse.

 ** _###_**

Talia Wagner, the Night Queen of Genosha, Magneto's granddaughter, stared up at her tower ceiling with empty, unseeing eyes. Well, not unseeing, by any means. She could see – thru the millions of eyes that belonged to her bats who roamed every inch of the planet. And thru one pair of eyes that belonged to a young girl named Peregrine Worthington. Talia possessed their minds; she saw thru their eyes.

But currently, Talia knelt on the floor of her tower, her head tilted up to the sky. Her own wide amber eyes could not see her own surroundings. She was in a trance. She would remain in this state of suspended animation until every one of her millions of tiny spies returned to her tower.

Her half-sister, Nightshade, the Queen Regent, kept watch over her strange sibling. Talia was searching for something, someone, thru her horde of mind-controlled bats. There seemed to be no place her bats could not go, no act their echolocation could not detect. They were millions of tiny bodies and eyes with one mind – Talia Wagner's – controlling them.

Nightshade paced impatiently, her long plaits dragging the floor. She knew what her sister was searching for – the same thing she searched for every season, during every bat migration, thru the eyes and ears of her loyal winged servants. Nightshade prayed she did not find it.

There was a whisper of movement. Not even a sound. An action. But Nightshade's keen senses latched onto it.

She was unlike her half-sister Talia is so many ways. She was a good deal shorter and her hair was the bright red of newly-spilt blood as Talia's was the dark-blue of a summer night sky. However, she shared much with Talia as well – the same indigo skin, the same sharp ears, the same keen sensibilities. These they inherited from their shared father, the X-Man known as Nightcrawler.

Nightshade's hearing was keen, though nowhere near as sharp as Talia's. But her instincts told her a trespasser was in the tower room. Nightshade whirled around, her sharp fangs bared and her heavy braids swinging – tipped in barbed spikes, her plaits could be used as bludgeons in a fight if necessary. The blue-skinned woman would keep vigil over her half-sister throughout her long trance. Nightshade and Talia often disagreed, but the Queen Regent would kill before anything or anyone threatened her sibling.

Yes, there was a trespasser here, but not a stranger, Nightshade reasoned. As soon as the last bat departed the tower room, Talia put up her telekinetic shields around the royal castle where the Night Queen lived. Nothing and no one could get in or out.

Someone had slipped inside before the shields were put up. Someone fast. Nightshade only knew two people that swift. One was her Uncle Pietro. The other was ...

"Tom?" she called out in an almost gentle voice, dropping her harsh demeanor for a moment.

A blur seemed to suddenly hover before her and then materialize into the form of a handsome young man with the tawny-brown wings of an owl tumbling down his back.

"Nightshade!" Tom Worthington hissed.

She had not seen him in years. His black hair had grown longer, but it still stuck out in feathery tufts around his temples, giving him that playful disheveled look. The black "X" tattooed on his shoulder made Nightshade remember her cousin Andre and her heart ached with the familiar dull pain.

"My girl Perri was here!" he said, his dark eyes taking in Nightshade.

How did she appear to him now? Nightshade wondered self-consciously. She had been an untried girl when they last knew each other, when they were both innocent children. She wanted to shrink under his surprised gaze. Had she really grown so bitter? _I had no choice_ , she told herself harshly. _I had to think of my people. There was no room there for softness._

The implication of his words hit her. _His girl_? "Your child?!" she gasped. Talia would have known that! Talia would have sensed that Tom had sired the falcon-girl who had killed one of the Night Queen's bats. Wouldn't she?

Nightshade opened her mouth to respond, but she didn't know where to begin. If she had known Perri was Tom's daughter …

"Where is my kid, Shade?!" Tom demanded. His enormous wingspan opened and dashed the air with ill intent. "Where is Peregrine?!" Old friend or not, Nightshade knew her life was forfeit between an angry raptor parent and his chick. The blue-skinned woman backed up, shielding her sister's prone form, and falling into a combat stance, ready to fight Tom to protect Talia if necessary.

"Not here …" a voice murmured from behind her. Nightshade looked around in surprise; Talia seldom reacted to any surrounding stimuli when in her trances. Tom took advantage of Nightshade's split-second distraction and pinned her to the tower room walls.

" _Tell me, goddammit_!" he snarled. Nightshade glimpsed the man's shimmering pink bow and quiver he had summoned. He could paralyze any opponent with these telekinetic weapons he manifested from his own psyche. Nightshade teleported in a wisp of smoke. All of Nightcrawler's daughters possessed this gift. It should have easily put Nightshade out of harm's reach against any other opponent, but even her teleportation gifts were put to the test against Tom's speed. No one was faster than him. In the time it took Nightshade to gather strength to teleport again, he had stunned the Queen Regent with one of his shimmering pink arrows.

"Tell me!" he shouted. "Or I'll kill every last goddamn one of you blue-skinned devils!"

"Stop," Talia murmured. Tom obeyed. He was paralyzed, frozen in a telekinetic bubble. Nightshade was as shocked as he seemed to be. Talia could barely speak during one of her trances. Her half-sister had no idea she could summon such power during one of them.

"Your little bird has … discovered something, Tom Worthington," Talia said softly, her amber eyes wide and unfocused as she saw the world thru a million eyes and Perri Worthington's as well.

 ** _###_**

Yes. Talia could see it. She could see the world spreading out beneath Perri's body. The falcon-girl flew alongside the bat colony. She protected them from a predator, a snow-white gyrfalcon. She dipped and dived with the flock, catching insects to eat. The horde flew over tiny volcanic islands in the green gem of the ocean. Then a continent swam up out of the sea to greet the migrating colony, a beautiful land of pink-blossoming trees that made the air thick with petals.

Then the bats spiraled down thru the warm night air to their subterranean hideaways where they would roost and rest up from their grueling migration. One adventurous young bat slipped away from the crowd and crawled down, down far beneath the earth where the walls glowed faintly with luminous fungi and water dripped down from the world above to make hulking teeth-like stalactites.

It was here a hand shot out and caught the small bat, holding the helpless little animal in a cage of massively cruel fingers. The tiny mammal cried out in fear, but the huge fingers twisted and crushed the small brittle body – but they didn't kill the bat; they reshaped the sweet little dished face into a long ravenous hungry fanged muzzle. Its wings and gentle little claws were changed and shaped and twisted into long needle-like spears.

"The hand of creation reshapes the weak … to make it strong," a voice murmured in the subterranean darkness. It released the hellishly shaped creation into the air and the bat – now no longer a bat, but a monstrosity – fluttered away with a horrific cry.

Talia's eyes suddenly focused to her surroundings. "Apocalypse has returned," she whispered.

 **Dun, dun, duuuuun _... Apocalypse is back, baby! Please review! POV will probably cut back to Cyclops' daughters for a little while. Stay tuned. Hope yah enjoy! - Maria_**


	17. The Astral Plane

_**Hiya, everybody. Apologies for the hiatus. So the next three chapters are going to focus on the Frost-Summers kidlets and will all take place (more or less) simultaneously ... and it's been a holy headache writing that haha! I just hope the story makes sense and flows the way it's supposed to.**_

 _ **Shout-out time: to HawkLeBeau who has an AMAZING story "Raising a Ruckus." Go check it out!**_

 _ **To buttless (amazing user-name btw) who admires my bunnies.**_

 _ **And to Doris Harbuck whose critique gives me motivation.**_

 _ **Thank you all SO MUCH!**_

 _ **Disclaimer: All these characters belong to Marvel. Even Kymri.**_

 _ **Please, please, PLEASE comment and send me your feedback! I want to know how I'm doing. Feedback is what keeps me writing and motivated.**_

 _ **Cheers, Maria**_

 _ **Chapter XVII: The Astral Plane**_

"Why is 'Dragon Hearts' still on our Flix account?" Megan Summers asked her mother as she scrolled thru Emma's phone. "Ruby hasn't watched that show since she was, like, four."

Emma Frost didn't respond. The White Queen seemed so distracted, mouthing words soundlessly, something she only did when she was _very_ agitated. Meg reached out and gently rubbed her mom's forearm.

Emma was making an errand run in the family SUV. Meg was sitting shotgun, tallying the family's errands on her mother's phone-screen. Emma glanced at her eldest daughter and smiled; her deeply-troubled emotions filled up Megan's head. They exuded weariness and sorrow.

The gloomy atmosphere hovering around the Summers family vehicle wasn't much better. For an empath like Megan, it was suffocating. She wanted to stick her head out the window and be sick.

Everyone was so sad and miserable. Ray had on her over-sized headphones, though they were playing no music. Occasionally Ray would nod her head as she stared out the window at the drizzling cold rain.

Poor Jeanie. She was tying knots again. Shoelaces. Ribbons. Anything long enough. Everyone in the boathouse would wake up in the mornings with everything from their shoelaces to their bedsheets tied in hopelessly tangled snarls. Jeanie did it in her sleep.

Jeanie couldn't project her thoughts into others' minds as she usually would. They were just too disturbing and chaotic - with the potential for causing mental damage to others. Her mother, against her daughter's adamant protests, had placed psychic dampers in Jeanie's mind. Cruel kindness, thought Meg, glancing back at Jeanie huddled in the backseat, hiding behind her long heavy drapes of wavy red hair, tying Ray's backpack straps into knots.

Olivier just seemed on edge. Meg suspected why. Since he had been an infant, the boy had been taught chivalrous behavior, going out of his way for people which seemed ironic to Meg considering the ultra-powerful females Oli lived with. Now Olivier, who was the always smooth in-control trickster, seemed as impotent and helpless as everyone else in the face of this horrible situation. The boy sat on the edge of his seat, feet tapping and knees jiggling.

Ruby was absent on this trip. Meg felt a jolt of exasperation, anger and frustration when she thought about her sister's recent behavior. Ruby had taken to sneaking off - to where, Meg had no idea. Ruby was still as psychically inaccessible to her sister as ever since Meg's telepathic storm. Worse still, Ruby seemed immune to the Summers family psy-link Emma had established, so nobody knew where the youngest Summers was sneaking off to.

Emma and Scott were almost overwhelmed by Ruby's rebellious behavior. Ruby had always been boisterous and hyperactive, but she had never been a bad disobedient girl. Rachel seemed as troubled by Ruby's behavior as everyone else, but also resigned to it. Her half-sister seemed to know something about Ruby's mysterious excursions, Meg thought, but Rachel wasn't telling as far as Megan knew.

Uncle Hank's reaction to the news of Jonathan was perhaps the strangest of all. He cloistered himself in his laboratory, working far into the night and early into the morning. When he wasn't doing nocturnal work in his lab, Beast sat with the children, playing at games with them as he had when they were small. Now, however, Meg sensed an urgency about him - like he was cramming as much time as possible in with the kids.

"Hank's seen allotta sadness, baby," Rogue told Meg soberly as way of explaining his behavior. It was so strange seeing Rogue this way, sad and pensive. All the grownups were. The kids too. A hush had fallen over the house, like a funeral had occurred.

"We all have," Marie added, referring to the grownups, of course. "You will too, if you live long enough."

That ominous predication made Meg feel somewhat sicker, if that was at all possible. _I want to escape_ ... she thought. _Just get away from this horrible oppressiveness_. She closed her eyes and a meadow-full of tall blue flowers swam up in the darkness of her subconscious. Bees buzzed all around her. _Am I imagining this_? she wondered. No, it seemed like she was actually standing in this field of flowers. It seemed so familiar to her - like a place she'd visited when she was a little child.

"Meg?"

Emma's voice exploded in Megan's head. Meg opened her eyes as she was jerked back into reality. She was sitting in the front passenger seat of her family's vehicle as rain tiredly pelted the windows. Her mother wasn't shouting, but her voice had shocked Meg like cold water.

Emma was staring hard at her eldest child. Meg didn't have to read her mother's thoughts; concern was etched all over the White Queen's face.

Emma murmured again: "Meg ..." Good God, Megan thought; her mom must have really been out of it. She almost never called her daughter by her nickname. "W-Were you asleep?"

"Noooo ..." Meg replied softly.

She sensed ... _confusion_ in her mother's thought patterns. Emma couldn't see the meadow Meg had been standing in even though the White Queen was frantically probing her daughter's thoughts. If Emma wanted to she could thoroughly examine Meg's every thought, even her subconscious ones, the ones Meg weren't even aware of.

Why couldn't the White Queen see the landscape Meg had just encountered?

"Of course not," Emma murmured absently, looking severely worried, not glancing at Meg and staring out at the road ahead.

The kids shuffled out of the SUV. Emma grabbed her purse. (Jeanie had tied the strap into a hopeless tangle.) She rustled around inside and pulled out four five-dollar bills which she distractedly handed out to the children. Meg was stunned. She and Ruby got monthly allowances and when that money was gone, it was gone. Emma Frost did not just hand out cash.

Meg looked at the money in her hand and then angrily crumpled it up in her fist. She hated the Universe. She hated whatever God was responsible for Jonathan. She hated Jeanie for being stupid. She hated Ruby for being selfish. She hated Rachel for being distant.

She wanted something to be furious at.

Oli put his hand gently on her arm and she snatched it away from him. Then she crammed her five-dollar bill into Ray's hand. Meg could see Ray doing some quick mental arithmetic concerning how many candy bars she could buy with ten bucks.

Kymri was working her part-time shift at the store. "Hi Emma. Hey, kids. Hey, Jeanie." Meg noticed Kymri's tone change slightly when she spoke Jeanie's name. The psychic dampers Rachel had placed in her daughter's mind made it impossible for her thoughts to reach Meg, but Jeanie appeared to not have even heard Kymri. Jeanie was busy fiddling with her hoodie strings.

Kymri's thoughts were extremely apparent to Meg. The blue-skinned woman felt intensely sorry for the family - and especially Jeanie. But she did not know exactly why. Rumors were running rampant around the School, the way they always did. Meg was grateful it was Winter Break and most of the students were gone. But most of the School staff remained and, of course, the Jean Grey School was the base of operations for the X-Men.

Nobody outside the family, excluding Rogue and her children and a few others like Toad, was truly aware of Jonathan's fate. Not even the other X-Men, like Kymri, with a few exceptions. As co-leader, Cyclops had offered to tell his team, sparring Rachel that awful task, but the proud grieving Phoenix refused - she viewed it as her duty to tell the news to her followers.

Meg wondered miserably when Rachel would do it. Her half-sister wasn't a procrastinator nor did she shirk her duties. Sympathy, but curiosity as well was radiating off of Kymri and Meg wanted to slap the woman.

 _Going outside_ ... Meg told her mom thru the family psy-link before morosely trudging outdoors. Emma didn't stop her daughter or admonish her for her rude behavior. Meg noticed her mother's usually strict discipline slacking somewhat since Jonathan's disappearance. Meg knew Emma worshiped her step-grandson. Like Scott, she made allowances for the twins she and her husband wouldn't dream of making for their own daughters.

Meg had been jealous, of course, but now she would have given anything for her parents to spoil Jonathan and Jeanie right in front of her and Ruby again.

As Meg passed Jeanie, she bumped her best friend's shoulder in a friendly way. Megan was almost past trying to encourage Jeanie to come out of her shell. She did these affectionate gestures more out of habit now. But it still broke Meg's heart to see the once-bubbly girl she so loved as silent and aloof as her twin brother had been.

Jeanie didn't even acknowledge Meg. She kept tying her hoodie strings into knots. However, a very strange image popped into Megan's brain of a girl with a striking resemblance to Jeanie. At first, Meg thought the girl _was_ Jeanie, only this image was a child younger than Jeanie - about eleven or twelve years old. She was lankier too and more narrow-chested with curlier hair and less freckles. Her eyes were covered in red shades too. She was huddled in a flannel jacket, staring down at the ground, drumming her fingers and tapping her foot in an absent way as though, like Jeanie, she wasn't even aware of her surroundings. Almost catatonic.

A realization hit Meg. The image in her mind was Rachel, Jeanie's mother, as a young child.

Meg was stunned. Rachel carefully shielded her past from her half-sisters. Meg and Ruby hadn't even seen photographs of Rachel as a kid. The only thing they had to go on were sporadic stories from Rogue and Uncle Hank.

Now, an image of young Rachel was being projected into Megan's brain.

But how was that possible? Jeanie couldn't project images telepathically anymore. And even so, how the hell could Meg have _this_ image in her brain?

 _Look at her, Meg_ , a voice seemed to whisper in her mind. _Don't let history repeat itself ..._

Who the hell was "speaking" to her psychically?! Not her mom. Meg felt a squeezing sensation in her chest. She felt a panic attack coming on hard and fast.

She stumbled outside. The pain in her head was terrific.

 _Focus_ , Meg begged herself. _Think of what Uncle Hank says. You only lash out telepathically when you sense a threat subconsciously._

But what threat? Meg sat down hard on the sidewalk in the parking lot. Her vision blurred; her head pounded. _Goddamn_! Her surroundings disappeared and she saw the field of blue flowers again. The vision in her head looked like it was supposed to be calming, but it only intensified the pain in her brain.

Now a woman, beautiful with fiery red hair swirling around her body, appeared in the meadow, holding her arms out imploringly. _Meg, help her_ ... she called out.

Meg dimly sensed Oli at her shoulder, in their own true reality in the convenience store parking lot, shaking her frantically.

"Meg! _Meggie_!" Olivier yelped. "I-I'll get your Mama!"

"No!" Meg snapped. "I-I need Ruby! Get me Ruby! I-I know where she is running off to!"

Meg had a sudden premonition - Ruby was in this meadow in Meg's subconscious! It was a ridiculous conclusion, of course, but Meg seemed almost sure of it now ...

"Oli ..." she moaned in extraordinary pain. "Get away from me. Get the others away from me!"

With his psychic elusiveness, Meg wasn't sure if Olivier would be affected by her mental outburst, but she didn't want to take chances. Also, the other kids certainly could. She didn't want her friends around her when she reached Stage 4 of her telepathic storm.

She threw her arm out and shoved her friend hard. She could now only vaguely sense Oli nearby. She couldn't see. Blackness was enveloping her. Meg was on the edge of unconsciousness now. She only had moments before she passed out; she had to get her friends as far away from her as possible.

She was about to unleash another telepathic storm. Meg caught the sound of Oli's sneakers slapping the pavement ... then the thud of him hitting the ground as her wave of psychic energy hit him.

 _So he can be affected_ ... was her last thought before she passed completely out.

 _ **###**_

"I hope you don't make a habit of this, Miss Summers," was the first thing Meg heard when she regained consciousness. Uncle Hank was peering down at her gravely. "Almost twice in one week. A new record."

"Stoppit!" Meg murmured vaguely as he shone a light in her eyes.

"You have a physiological reaction to telepathic storms as one would a concussion. Fascinating …" Hank muttered in reply. "Please don't fall asleep, my dear."

"D-Did I hurt anyone …?" Megan croaked. Her throat felt horribly dry.

"No. No, of course not," Beast said hastily as he poured some water down her, supporting her head with one paw while gently siphoning water in her mouth like she was a baby goat. Meg feebly tried to swat his huge hands away as she wondered if Uncle Hank would ever stop treating her and Ruby like wayward children.

Something about his hurried response made Meg suspicious. " Buuut?" she asked, narrowing her eyes at the fuzzy blue man.

One good thing about Uncle Hank was he was generally straightforward with his nieces. He didn't worry so much about sparing your feelings as he did stating the facts. As a scientist herself, Meg could appreciate that.

But Dr. McCoy, ever the grave scientist, was choosing his words carefully: "Your mother seemed to have a … difficult time severing your subconscious access to a vast reservoir of pure psychic energy. Rachel had to help her contain you."

Megan's blue eyes widened. "T-That's never happened before!" she gasped.

Hank nodded, his incisors jutting prominently out of his under-bite. "Quite. You recall your telepathic powers manifested when you were two-years-old?"

She nodded, trying to make her eyes focus on her Uncle. She felt even weaker than after the usual telepathic storm and she felt the strong urge to vomit. Uncle Hank held the bedpan for her with all his usual detached clinical air as she dry-heaved into the basin.

"My stars, this brings back the memories," he said jovially. "Holding back your father's hair after a night of drunken antics. Though it was usually your Uncle Warren. That man could not hold his liquor."

Meg absorbed this tidbit of information. It shocked her more than what Uncle Hank had just told her about Emma and Rachel struggling to "contain" her. "Dad was _drunk_ ?!" she hiccupped between vomiting spells.

"Quite often during our days as schoolmates. We tended to be at our worst during post-examination celebrations … or pity-parties," he added with a chuckle.

Megan had quite a few follow-up questions – concerning her dad and Hank's youthful antics in particular – but that must wait for now.

"Yes, I remember the mountain lion attack on Jeanie," she said.

It was her first clear memory, in fact. That was the first time she lashed out psychically – and unintentionally.

"Your abilities manifested at a much earlier age than most mutants the generation prior," Hank explained.

Meg wrinkled her nose at his use of the word "mutant." Few people used it nowadays and those that did were mostly around Hank's age. Those with supernatural powers were now known as the _Gifted_ – and, unlike most of those in Hank's generation – their powers were celebrated, not shunned.

"Your mother and father's powers manifested around puberty as did mine," Hank continued. "However, you are not an unusual case, Megan. Manifestation of gifts, especially psychic ones, in early childhood isn't unusual in your peer class. Jeanie and … Jonathan's powers manifested almost at birth."

Meg noticed the hitch in Hank's voice when he mentioned Jonathan's name. She also noticed her uncle's red-rimmed eyes. Most of the grownups were walking around with them these days.

"However, secondary mutations are very common among your peer group around adolescence. Or a juvenile's primary abilities may increase in intensity." Hank gazed pointedly at his niece.

Meg pressed a napkin to her lips as another nausea spell came and went. "You think that's what is happening to me?" she asked when she thought it was safe to speak.

"Quite possible. Quite probable," Hank responded, his amber eyes thoughtful.

He took Megan's slim hand in his massive paw-like one. She thought her hand resembled a porcelain doll's against her uncle's huge furry blue one. There was a faraway look in his eyes. His surface emotions pressed against her mind – Hank, like Cyclops, had lived with telepaths for many years, so he was very skilled at eluding psychic probing, so Meg knew her uncle had to be feeling very strong emotions for her to even be psychically detecting it, especially in her weakened state.

"Uncle Hank?" she ventured softly, concerned.

His emotions, the ones leaking into her brain, were wistful, bittersweet, but with a comical hint. When Meg thought about it that seemed to be Hank's distinct psychic profile, sort of like a telepathic fingerprint that she distinguished someone by. He was so familiar to her – she had known Beast her entire life – that his day-to-day emotions seldom registered with her. It was like glancing at something you saw every day. She took it for granted.

"I was thinking about a line from the Bard," Hank murmured.

 _Oh, here we go_ … thought Meg, but in a fond way. Uncle Hank was forever quoting Shakespeare when he lectured the children. It was sort of a running joke in the family. " _And though she be but little, she is fierce_ ," Hank stated.

Meg smiled at the familiar quote.

"That seems to be the way of things among our kind – _homo superior_ – mutants, the _Gifted_ ," he said with a chuckle. "There are those who are extravagant and loud, but the little ones lay quietly biding their time … Of course, things seem to have always been that way."

He gave a pause, both verbally and mentally, as if debating whether or not to tell Meg something … _What could it be_? she wondered, like a little girl about to get a surprise. She could almost hear the secret Uncle Hank kept, but it was like an unintelligible whisper behind a wall in his mind.

"I don't suppose Scott has told you anything of our early days here? Back when this School was called Xavier's? No. No, of course he hasn't," Hank sighed. "Scott is a wise man and he isn't a bad one. He's a brilliant leader, of course. He wants to leave the past behind him, however, and shield those he loves from it; instead of recalling it in the indulgent fashion afforded old codgers. For memories, even the sad ones, can be a great comfort to an old man and I am very old, my dear …" Hank rambled on.

Then he smiled at Meg in a slightly mischievous way. She could sense he had come to a decision on telling her something – something about his and Cyclops' shared past, which Scott had never mentioned to Meg or Ruby.

"Your father might berate me for telling you this," Hank continued. "But I feel I am so close to the end of my life that he might not expend the energy doing what Death will soon accomplish."

"Don't say those things!" Meg scolded him, her blue eyes wide. Uncle Hank had a dry wit and it was hard to tell when he was joking at times. She dearly hoped he was joking now. He was … of course, she thought, for he was grinning roguishly at his niece now.

"I came here when I was 19 years old," he said to her. "Merely a child in many ways, though I might have struck anyone who called me such or I might have wanted to. I didn't like fighting as a rule – though fights tended to come to me, given my appearance – but I was quite prideful! At that age, I was already six-foot-two and over 400 pounds," he said with a chuckle. "But I was as guileless and gullible as any kid. I was quite old, however, compared to the other students who came to study under Professor Charles Xavier."

Meg perked up a bit at that name. Of course, she had heard of Professor X – every kid she knew of had – but it was a name synonymous with the past, a name she had read in a book, a picture she had seen on a screen. It had little to no relevance in her life.

So when she echoed the name, Hank nodded gravely. "Yes. I was one of his first students and the eldest of his original bunch. Your father was the second-eldest. He was 17 at the time."

Meg gawked. "Dad?!" she asked.

"Ummm-hum," Hank hummed with a smile. "But a leader by rights. He wasted no time in letting us fellows know that, for Professor Xavier only had male students in the beginning. Though to be perfectly honest, none of us boys minded Scotty taking the lead. He was a natural – a brilliant tactician, though he looked out for all of us. Scott was an orphan and Warren and I might as well have been," he added with a grimace, as if examining a livid scar time had healed, but never erased.

"Young Master Robert Drake was the lamb, though a slipperier trickster I've never seen – though Young Master Olivier could have given him a run for his money when I think on it," Hank added, smiling as he reminisced. "Scott had a way of curbing Bobby's more … enthusiastic tendencies, while bringing out his strengths. Cyclops did the same for all of us. He turned four naïve teenagers into a functioning fighting team."

"The X-Men …" Meg whispered.

"The very first," Beast said, smiling indulgently at his niece. "We were teammates, but more than that. Closer than brothers were we! Though, of course, there would come a disagreement over which we would fight and almost break apart."

Meg was shocked. She had learned about the various foes the X-Men had faced in the past. The super-powered team had fought such heinous villains and been victorious. What on Earth could tear them apart? "Mastermind?" she guessed. "Belasco? Or maybe Sinister?" _Apocalypse_ …? she wondered silently, though she didn't dare even mention that horrible name. None of the kids did. None of her peers had encountered the awful being with almost unlimited power, but they all knew of his terrible power and capability for destruction.

Hank laughed. "No. No. Someone far more formidable than those villains," he chuckled. "A _girl_."

"Girl?" Meg said in confusion. " Ooooh, like Mystique or Deathbird?"

"Wrong again, though those _femme fatales_ were quite dangerous," he replied. "This one was a little girl, around your age, no more than 15 years old, Professor Xavier's first female student. His first student, actually. He had tutored her long before he brought her here. He seemed a bit hesitant to integrate her onto our team. I can't imagine why …" he said wryly.

Meg just blinked obliviously at her uncle. "A little girl almost destroyed the X-Men? How? With her powers?" she asked. She had heard of similar situations, of course. Young _Gifted_ children could be quite powerful (she knew that perhaps better than most) especially when they couldn't control their abilities, but she had never even heard of a _Gifted_ juvenile the X-Men could not contain or teach to control her powers.

"Yes, but not with her mutant powers," Hank replied. At Meg's confused expression, he simply replied: "It … well, apologies if I sound patronizing, child, but it's one of those things only age can bring understanding of.

"It was less about her intentions than her unintentional effect on us young boys," he explained.

Meg was still confused. "So … it had nothing to do with her powers? But then how …?"

"Hmm, let me see how I can explain this," Uncle Hank said. "Do you recall when little Jeanie came to stay here last summer?"

"Oh, yes, that was fun! Or it would have been if all the boys at School hadn't made such a fuss over her ..."

 _Oh_! Meg suddenly understood. "My father made a fool of himself over a little girl?!" she said, outraged. That was almost as shocking as her father being ... _drunk_!

"We all did," Hank laughed. "We fought like dogs over her attention. What we didn't know is she had already made up her mind; she was Scott's from the very beginning."

"Mom?" Meg asked excitedly, her face lighting up. She had never heard the story of how her mother and father had met; that had never struck her as strange before now.

"No," Hank said kindly. "She was Rachel's mother - Jean Grey."

Meg's eyes widened at the name. Like Professor Xavier's, she was very familiar with it - the damn School was named for Jean Grey - but not in context to her. The fact Jean Grey, the most powerful being to ever exist in this universe, was indeed her half-sister's mother and her father's first love utterly floored Meg.

Hank chuckled in response to Meg's amazed expression. "Jean had Scott's full attention, don't get me wrong, but not exactly in the way you might have expected," he explained with humor. "Your father can tend to be a bit protective, as you know, not to mention possessive and he saw Jean as a bit of a threat - well, a formidable threat - to the first stable family Scott had ever known. As I've mentioned before, us fellows were brothers in all but blood, but Jean's charms had made us turn on each other like animals. Scott resented her strongly.

"So, naturally, he held her undivided attention. She could render her other classmates warring barbarians with a look, but Scott was beyond her reach. What was a charming young woman to do?"

"Ummm ...?" Meg hummed, not at all sure how to respond.

"Befriend him, of course," Beast laughed. "It took a great deal of effort on her behalf, but Jean Grey was not to be deterred; she did earn Scott's admiration and camaraderie. They became the very best of friends ..."

"Then how - ?" asked Megan.

"Well, my dear, close friends have the habit of becoming lovers later in life," he replied.

Olivier popped into Meg's head unbidden. Her brain, already overloaded, kicked that thought right back out.

Hank continued: "I do not know if this was Jean's original intention. She was a sly girl, but then she cherished her friendship with Cyclops. I debated her putting it at risk for a potentially uncertain romance. But the Universe did smile upon that turn of Fate ... and young Rachel Anne was the product of the union."

Meg felt like an enormous sponge. She was absorbing so much information that she felt her head might explode. Plus, Uncle Hank's emotions were completely open to her now, so she sensed the cocktail of sadness, bittersweet happiness and reminiscent fondness emanating off her old friend's mind. Meg shut her eyes and swayed.

"Steady," Hank clucked, gently putting his hands on her shoulders. He also thoughtfully put up some mental shields. "It must be a lot to take in."

"You have no idea," Meg murmured.

"I may," Hank said with a wink. "Remember I have been an X-Man a _long_ time."

"Why are you telling me this now?" Meg asked him, slightly indignant.

She was about to ask "why isn't my dad?" But she knew the answer to that question; Megan was almost afraid of what Cyclops would do if he found out Uncle Hank was telling her these things.

"Because I am a rambling old fart," Hank chuckled. "But also because the powers you are exhibiting now are extremely familiar ..."

Meg felt more impatient. It's not like she _minded_ being compared to Emma Frost. She was certainly used to it - she was practically the picture of her mother - but still ... She tired of it at times.

"Yes. Yes," Meg said in exasperation. "I know - to Mom's telepathic abilities." She knew she sounded like a whiner, but she was so exhausted of hearing it. She was Uber-Emma; she got it.

"No. Actually the powers you are displaying now are incredibly similar to Jean Grey's," Hank stated.

Megan's mouth dropped open and Hank very tactlessly laughed at her.

"I'm sorry," he said, for he very seldom forgot his usual gentlemanly demeanor. "But why do you think I kept rambling on about these nostalgic reminiscences - for the joy of hearing myself speak?"

"But ... How? Why?" Meg stuttered.

"Emma's powers are incredible," Hank explained. "But she draws that power from her own psyche. Her own self."

"And mine ... doesn't?" Meg peeped.

"Ah, very good, Miss Summers. You're catching on," Hank replied. "I theorize that, when you cause a telepathic storm, you are drawing upon a well of mental energy not entirely your own."

Hank's face grew thoughtful at Meg's puzzled expression. "Hmm, think of it as accessing a giant server made up of the telepathic energy of countless psychics. Do you understand, my dear?"

"I dunno ..."

"Have you ever heard about the Astral Plane?"

Meg felt a twinge in her brain, like she was trying to remember a forgotten dream. Suddenly, the image of a strange meadow full of blue flowers flashed thru her mind. Her head throbbed with pain.

"Uuuugh ..." she groaned.

"Are you all right?" Hank asked her.

"N-No," she said, feeling very weak. Her vision blurred as the meadow came into focus in her mind. The pain in her head intensified. Was she bringing on another telepathic storm? No ... how could she survive another one so close to the psychic storm she had created previously?

Meg forced the image of the meadow out of her mind and her vision almost instantly cleared.

Hank, sensing her distress, pushed Meg's crochet needles into her hands.

"Here, my dear," he said.

Meg fell into the tedious task, stitching the alpaca-Angora rabbit yarn into rows; it immediately calmed her.

There it was again. That image of the meadow. That premonition. She felt so foolish thinking about this, but she knew this strange image that kept appearing in her head had _something_ to do with Ruby's recent disappearances.

"Megan ...?" Hank spoke.

He was staring at her; she knew he was. Hank knew something was up. Meg knew better than to try to evade him; Beast knew his niece too well.

"I ... y'know how Ruby keeps sneaking off?" she said, not looking up from her crocheting.

"Hmm," Hank replied, scratching his chin.

"I- Arghh! This seems so stupid, Uncle Hank! But, dammit - Oops!" she hissed, glancing nervously at him. Though Hank wasn't as uptight about the girls cursing as Scott and Emma were, he scowled. But he didn't say anything; he knew not to push his nieces when they were struggling to open up about something. Hank had lived too long and helped raise too many teenagers.

"I keep thinking about this damn ... er, stupid field of flowers and, oh, for some crazy reason I connect it to Ruby!" she blurted out. She was flushed with embarrassment, but she felt she couldn't stop herself now. "When I envision this meadow it feels so familiar. Like I've been there before; like I'm supposed to go there now. Am I going crazy, Uncle Hank?" she demanded when he just stood there staring at her, bemusement radiating like heat off his brain.

"Maybe not ..." he said, a bit dubiously.

 _Oh, nice_ , Meg thought sarcastically.

"Listen to me, Megan, and if you find yourself in mental pain, please continue with your crochet-work as it seems to soothe your ... impulses," Hank ordered her. "The Astral Plane is an inter-dimensional hub which can serve as a well of psychic energy which telepaths may access. That is exactly how Rachel draws upon her immense telepathic energy."

"But Rachel _is_ a telepath," Meg said, forcing herself to multi-task, crocheting while having this bizarre conversation with her Uncle Hank.

"Yes, of course. She is an extremely powerful psychic in her own right, but by drawing upon the psychic energy of the Astral Plane, it doubles, triples her sheer raw power," Hank explained. "She has been able to access the Astral Plane since she was ... very small."

The way he said those last words made Megan look hard at him. "Since her mother, Jean Grey, died," he said in an almost apologetic way. "Rachel was just a baby. She would go missing for hours. We were in a state, let me tell you," he chuckled fondly at the memory. "Her Auntie O and I. But Rachel would always return to us safely. We had no idea where she was going or what she was doing until she learned to tell us - by projecting images into our minds."

"Just like Jeanie does!" Meg said. "Or did ..." she added sadly.

"Yes, Rachel did not learn to communicate verbally until she was quite old, nine or ten. For a long while, we didn't think she could do it."

"Like Jonathan ..." Meg trailed off and for a few silent moments she just sat there in Hank's lab opposite her uncle. Hank sniffled to break the silence.

Hank gazed out the window to where some chickadees were chirping and hopping around one of his many bird-feeders. He had kept them out every winter since Meg could remember.

"Rachel's children are very similar to the little girl their mother used to be," he finally spoke. "When Rachel was small, we, the X-Men that is - one incarnation at any rate - called Rachel's frequent absences 'night-walking' as she would often disappear nocturnally. We would find her in the oddest places, as I've explained before. She was actually accessing the Astral Plane. I am very fearful her little daughter is doing the same ..."

Meg glanced up, dropping her crochet needles which _clinked_ ominously on the slick linoleum floor. "What?" she demanded.

"Jeanie has been missing for almost the past 48 hours, Meg, since you were rendered unconscious," Hank said gravely.

"She's on the Astral Plane?" Meg asked. "I've been out that long?!" She was beginning to feel overwhelmed. Nope. She was beyond overwhelmed. She was immersed.

"That is our hypothesis." Hank did not sound upbeat.

"Then why hasn't Rachel brought her back?!"

Meg's blue eyes begged him to tell her the truth. Hank sighed wearily.

"The Astral Plane is an inter-dimensional hub, my dear. It is my - _our_ , Emma's and my own- hypothesis that Jeanie has accessed the Astral Plane in order to search for her brother. Jeanie is a very powerful telepath, despite her youth, just as her mother is and was at that age. Jeanie could certainly do it," Hank said, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"I feel a 'but' - a very _big but_ \- coming on," Meg replied, remembering how Ruby would giggle at that stupid joke. Ruby and Rachel shared a penchant for dumb jokes.

"Jeanie hopes to find her twin there, safe."

" _But_?"

"But not sound."

Meg felt a jolt of excruciating pain that almost knocked her off the exam table. Hank rushed to catch his niece. Her vision was badly blurred again. All she could see was a wall of blue-grey and all she could sense was an ominous dread. A single word: " _Apocalypse_ ..." whispered thru her brain."

"Oh my _God_!" she screamed as the pain intensified.

"You are subconsciously reacting to a threat you sense in the Astral Plane, Meg!" Hank said, a frantic edge in his voice. "Jonathan is there and Jeanie has gone there to find him, but her brother is corrupted by the X-Men's greatest enemy. That is why Emma and Rachel are afraid to get near him! They sense the taint of Apocalypse on Jonathan! He carries Apocalypse's influence; if Jonathan were to enter this dimension ... he could wipe out all life in this Universe!" Hank shouted into her ear, but his voice sounded so far away.

The vision of the meadow dotted with blue flowers swam up in her mind. Jeanie was standing there, her wavy red hair twirling in a breeze. She glanced up at Megan and smiled, joy lighting up her freckled face. Meg should have been so happy to see her friend - who had recently been almost catatonic - with such a joyful expression.

Meg, however, felt only dread as Jeanie reached out to take the hand of her twin brother, Jonathan, who was standing in the field alongside his sister. He had the same coppery-colored hair and strikingly handsome features. He was wearing the same eye-patch he had had to wear since infancy and carried his trusty telekinetic spear, but there was something about the boy that made Meg think: This is definitely _not_ Jonathan!

There was something about the tilt of his jaw, the stiffness in his stance, even the complexion of his skin that screamed at Meg's instincts: This is _WRONG_!

And Megan's first instinct was to fight or flee. She couldn't flee, so she gathered herself to fight. Meg wasn't a fighter; she hated fighting, but when her back was up against a wall she could be a scrapper like her sister Ruby. Add that to the fact that she was an enormously powerful telepath ... And now - yes! Hank was right! She could feel herself absorbing psychic energy from her very surroundings. This was the Astral Plane and Meg Summers was absorbing its power like a sponge.

She felt the pure energy filling up her mind and body down to her fingertips and nerve endings. A thousand voices from a thousand minds filled her with their power. All around Meg glowed a halo of energy that gradually took the form of an enormous fiery bird.

Poised and ready to defend Jeanie from this ... _creature_ that appeared to be Jonathan, Meg shrieked out in a voice, in a thousand voices, not her own: "I command you, evil being - _be gone from this place_!"


	18. Pretty Ponies

**OK, a couple things ... My 2-year-old daughter watches A TON of My Little Pony. This is my life.**

 **Another thing: All I remember of the PBS show "Dragon Tales" is the two-headed dragon Zak and Wheezie and Wheezie screaming, "LUUUUUUV IT!" and I still use that catch-phrase to this day.**

 **Last of all, these characters belong to Marvel.**

 **That is all.**

 **Please enjoy this chapter and _please comment and review_!**

 ** _Chapter XVIII: Pretty Ponies_**

 ** _11 years ago ..._**

Jeanie Richards, age five, and Megan Summers, age three-almost-four, sat before a roaring fireplace playing Pretty Ponies. Meg was playing with "Pretty Plum," her favorite purple pony figurine with a vivid magenta mane and tail. Jeanie didn't have any Pretty Pony figurines, but little tow-headed Meg loaned her best pal "Jellybean Sundae," one of Meg's less-favored ponies the color of pistachio ice-cream.

Jeanie didn't have many toys of her own - her Mama Laura didn't approve of such frivolous things - so she was thrilled to get a chance to play with any of her friend's colorful pony collection - she would even have been excited to borrow "Badger Tail." But the black-and-white pony lay undisturbed on his side far from the girls' play area by the fireplace; Meg didn't want Jeanie touching Pretty Plum or Rainbow Harpy, but she wasn't a bad friend either.

Emma Frost and Rachel Summers, Meg and Jeanie's mothers respectively, sat watching the little girls. The women were having a conversation, but their lips weren't moving. They were communicating telepathically as were their children; telepathy was the girls' primary form of communication. In fact, they barely used any spoken words. To Meg, who had just learned to communicate verbally, speaking words was more like a novelty, a cute trick, instead of a skill survival depended on.

" _Blacks and bays and browns and greys and all the pretty little horses_!" Meg sang in a high-pitched sweet voice to show off her newfound skill as she and Jeanie played with their ponies.

"What do you think of Meggie's singing, Jeanie Bean?" Rachel asked her daughter. "Isn't it pretty?"

Jeanie stuck her tongue out to show her opinion of Meg's musical talents. Rach and Emma laughed in unison. Meg had learned to talk later than most children; she communicated primarily via telepathy and saw no need to learn the spoken word sooner. Jeanie, who would be six years old in April but very tall for her age, still rarely spoke verbally at all, her vocabulary consisting of sporadic words and broken sentences.

Rain pelted the windows and caused a drowsy hum on the boathouse roof where the Summers family lived. The rowdier children – Meg's "little" sister Ruby (who was indeed almost as tall as Jeanie), Jeanie's twin brother Jonathan and Rogue's children, five-year-old Olivier and six-year-old Ray LeBeau – were outdoors playing in the rain. Their Uncle Hank was with them, sloshing thru puddles and slinging mud about with the same gusto as the kids; though the huge blue man was called "Beast" by just about everyone, Dr. Hank McCoy was just an enormous teddy bear with his many little nieces and nephews.

"They're filthy," Emma sighed, gazing out the window as her youngest daughter, who had just turned three, splashed into a muddy puddle and stood there knee-deep in the coffee-colored water, kicking with glee. The White Queen glanced back at her eldest child and step-granddaughter who were content to engage in more quiet play. Their expressions were innocent, but the two girls were having a spirited telepathic conversation.

 _Oli is covered in mud_ , Jeanie "said" to her best friend, projecting an image of the dirty little boy into Meg's mind.

 _Gross_! Meg replied psychically. _He'd better stay away from me_!

 _I think he still looks handsome_ , Jeanie countered with a devilish grin. _I wouldn't mind him coming close to me!_

Jeanie projected an image into Megan's brain that made the little blonde girl blush furiously.

 _I would definitely NOT kiss Olivier LeBeau_! Meg huffed telepathically. For some reason, everyone seemed to think she and Oli would get married when they grew up. It was infuriating.

 _Hmm, you'd better get used to kissing him_ , _Meggie_! Jeanie teased her. _Oli's going to be your husband someday_.

 _Ew, no way_! Meg protested angrily.

Jeanie shrugged, but the smirk remained on her face. _Have it your way. 'Sides, I wasn't referring to YOU kissing Oli. I would kiss him_ …

Meg gasped. _Shut up_!

 _Happily, mud or no_.

 _Jeanie_! Meg was mortified.

 _What_? Jeanie replied innocently. _You don't want to kiss him. He's going completely to waste_.

 _He's MY husband_! Meg snapped psychically. _You cannot kiss my husband_!

 _Not yet. He should have some fun before he marries you, Meggie. You're a prude_ , Jeanie stated, using a word her Mama Laura had said. Jeanie didn't know exactly what it meant (Mama Laura used several words she didn't know the meaning of) but the feral woman who raised Jeanie and her twin brother hadn't said it in the most flattering way, so Jeanie knew how to _use_ it. _He won't get any kisses from YOU_ , Jeanie added with a stab at her best friend and a very clear challenge: _Kiss Olivier_.

Meg scowled. Her friend was always putting her up to these ridiculous dares. Of course, Jeanie never dared Megan outright, so the freckle-faced redhead couldn't take the blame when things went awry. Like her twin brother, Jeanie could be very sneaky, but she was so blue-eyed and innocent-looking no one pinned her with responsibility for any trouble.

 _He might not want to_! Meg stated hopefully. Oli was always playing tricks on the girls. Meg had found a centipede in her bath just last night.

Jeanie smiled slyly. _Oli is always telling stories about knights kissing fair maidens. And he's already kissed dozens of girls at his School, Ray-Ray told me_ , Jeanie informed Meg.

 _Dozens_?!

Jeanie shrugged. _Well, they didn't know he had a wife_ .

The windows flashed suddenly and thunder roared thru the house. Meg shrieked and flew up the blanket her mother was wrapped in. Meg was terrified of thunderstorms. The little girl clung to Emma, shaking, as her mother smoothed down Megan's straight blonde hair and spoke to her in soothing words. Thunder rattled the house again and Meggie cringed and buried her head in Emma's shoulder, whimpering in fear.

Emma gently massaged her daughter's back to calm her and hummed the refrain of Meg's favorite song:

" _Hush-a-bye, don't you cry,_

 _Go to sleep, little baby,_

 _When you wake you shall have,_

 _All the pretty little horses_ …"

Jeanie stood up and studied her best friend, puzzled by Meg's behavior. The little redhead projected a mental image to Rachel, her mother.

"No, hon, I can't stop the storm," Rachel laughed, shaking her curly head, though the young telepath was very flattered her only daughter, whom Rachel adored, thought she could. In Jeanie's eyes, her Mama Rachel could do anything … and that wasn't too far from the truth. "I can't control the weather, though I knew someone who could. My Auntie O could make the sun shine to melt the ice on the coldest day or make snowflakes fly in the middle of July if she wanted. When I was a little girl I never had to wait for a breeze to fly a kite or a rainy day to splash in puddles – Auntie O was always there to make sure I had fun."

"She could be a real terror too," Emma added glibly. She and Rachel's Auntie O had never been friends. "When she was angry she could conjure a storm that would make this one look like a drizzle."

Rachel chuckled. "She wasn't one to mess with. She was like a ferocious mama lioness looking after her cubs. But she always kept me safe, just like we'll always keep you and the other kids safe."

Jeanie gazed thoughtfully at her mama, considering what she just said. She projected an image of herself as a huge lion with a curly red mane and tail-tuft standing protectively over a litter of lion cubs that strongly resembled Meg and her other little cousins.

"Yes, you are the eldest, after Ray-Ray," Rachel said. Although Jeanie's twin brother, Jonathan, had a more aggressive assertive personality than his sister (despite the fact he had never spoken a single word), Jeanie was in fact the eldest of the siblings. "So you must learn to look after the little ones, Jeanie Bean."

Jeanie nodded silently, wearing the same thoughtful expression. Then she tiptoed to the front door, tugged it open and, suddenly, a massive lion-like beast like the one Jeanie had projected into her mother's mind appeared. The monstrous creature roared at the storm, baring its long fangs and making the house shake. Rachel and Emma were amazed; Uncle Hank and the other children stopped playing, gawking in shock at Jeanie's leonine beast bellowing at the storm. Jonathan seemed especially surprised. Jonathan had conjured these kinds of beasts before – the ability to do that was part of his supernatural powers – but Jeanie never had before.

Jeanie rarely spoke a word, but her message she sent thru her powers to the forces of nature was loud and clear: _Don't you dare threaten my family and friends_!

 ** _###_**

 ** _Present day …_**

Something – _someone_ – had trapped Jeanie's twin brother in another dimension she could not reach. But his captor would not kill Jonathan. No, Jeanie sensed it thru the bond she shared with her brother. His captor wanted the boy to suffer – to determine how strong he was, to determine his endurance.

To see if he was worthy … of _something_. His captor wanted to give Jonathan something. But what Jeanie didn't know because Jonathan didn't know yet. At least, he wasn't sure. She, however, sensed that Jonathan was _Changing_ somehow. Not growing up or growing taller or growing older the way people are supposed to naturally, but changing into _something_ … something sinister. Something terrible. Jeanie could feel it.

Since his disappearance, Jeanie had experienced every moment of her twin brother's pain and suffering. She had wanted to die, so perhaps he could too and have to suffer no more, but Emma had told Jeanie that was cowardly. And Jeanie knew in her heart it was. A memory she had recalled of when she was just five years old, of Jeanie challenging the very elements to threaten her beloved family, had reminded the girl of that.

Emma had promised Jeanie she would find a way to rescue Jonathan. Emma was as devoted to her step-grandchildren as a biological grandmother would have been, but matters were different for Jeanie. Emma loved Jonathan; he was Jeanie's entire world.

Jeanie had gone out with her step-grandmother and her cousins on an errand-run day-before-yesterday and Meg had had another of her extreme panic attacks. Before then, Jeanie had only ever witnessed one of the telepathic storms Megan caused sometimes. It had occurred when Meg was two and Jeanie had just turned five. A mountain lion attacked them and Meg subconsciously reacted by lashing out psychically at everything around her, rendering them unconscious. If Jonathan hadn't intervened, Meg's psychic storm would have killed everyone – even her best friend Jeanie.

Uncle Hank theorized why Meg lashed out telepathically sometimes – she felt subconsciously threatened. And Jeanie theorized why Meg had done it this last time.

It had something to do with a place called the Astral Plane.

Actually, it had everything to do with a place called the Astral Plane.

Three nights ago, on the day Jeanie and her mother had arrived here at the Jean Grey School Jeanie had begun projecting Jonathan's horrible pain, which she as his twin could feel as potently as he, into the minds of her friends and family. It was then Rachel had gone inside her daughter's mind and done the saddest thing a telepath could do to another psychic – she had placed psychic dampers in Jeanie's mind. It was especially bad for Jeanie because Jeanie communicated primarily via telepathy, by projecting images into another's mind. But now her projections were corrupted by her brother's suffering; she couldn't even communicate with another person without harming them.

How ironic. Little Dream Jeanie Richards who would go out of her way not to cause others pain.

On that night, Jeanie had run away into the forested hills surrounding the School and there Emma had found her, contemplating taking her own life. Jeanie was sixteen; she was the eldest of her cousins, except for Ray who beat her by just a few months. When they were little girls, Jeanie and Meg were always scheming. Jonathan teamed up with Olivier LeBeau to play awful pranks and Ray was the only one of the kids who could stand up to Ruby's rowdy behavior. But Jeanie and Meg dreamed up plans for the future as only best pals could.

The two girls planned to live and work side-by-side when they grew up; their children would play together just as they had.

Of course, Meg would marry Oli just as everyone predicted though Jeanie's best friend ardently denied it; she actually seemed more interested in boring old Howard Najeer who seemed to be the dullest boy Jeanie had ever met. As for Jeanie, and much to her Mama Laura's dismay, she had more than enough suitors to choose from. She really couldn't decide on the one among the boys grappling for her attention … Though, with a wicked passion, she loved to tease Meg by taking notice of young Olivier who just got handsomer every time she saw him.

Jeanie knew poor Meg would weep for her if she died; the little blue-eyed blonde girl had been devoted to Jeanie almost since birth. Sure, Meggie was jealous of Jeanie's good looks and blooming personality, but what girl wasn't? It had caused a strain in their friendship, especially when Jeanie came for a temporary stay at the Jean Grey School last summer. Seeing her male schoolmates flock around Jeanie was a bit much for even Meg who swore up and down she wasn't interested in that sort of thing.

Jeanie hadn't had the chance to marry or make love or give birth to babies as she wanted to. She was still a virgin; if Mama Laura had her way she would probably stay that way.

On that chilly winter night, Jeanie certainly planned to. Jonathan's suffering was too much for her deeply empathetic mind. Not even the dampers Rachel had placed in Jeanie's mind could severe the bond the twins shared. Meg had been Jeanie's best friend since childhood, but Jeanie and Jonathan began life together in their mother's womb. Each twin felt the other's pain, even when they were far apart. When Jeanie broke her arm when she was eight, Jonathan's arm hung limp and hurting though he was miles away from his sister. When Jonathan was attacked by a mad bear when he was eleven, Jeanie felt every stab of her brother's pain.

It made sense to Jeanie that by ending her own life, she could end her brother's suffering as well because she saw no other solution. But now … Emma had made a promise to her that Jonathan could be saved. And that's when Jeanie began to Change as well, though she didn't suspect it.

Jeanie loved her family. She loved Emma and Grandpa Scott and, of course, Meg was her best and oldest friend. Though she was too loyal to Meg to admit it, Jeanie had even begun to feel the tugging of desire for mischievous dashing Olivier as she grew up into a young woman.

Jonathan, however, was her life. She had never existed without her twin and she was positive she never could.

Jeanie knew why Meg had lashed out telepathically at the store two nights ago. When Emma talked privately to Jeanie in the forest hills, Jeanie had sensed her step-grandmother holding back a secret. Emma had promised to save Jonathan, but there was a horrible risk attached – a risk that could put everyone they loved in mortal danger.

Was Jeanie willing to take that risk for her twin brother?

The answer was simple. Jeanie had been taught as a telepath's daughter that tapping into another's mind without invitation is a horrible breech of ethics. And to attempt to invade Emma Frost's mind, the most powerful mind in the world, was simply unthinkable – or it had been before that night when Jeanie sensed her step-grandmother holding back a secret that could save her Jonathan.

Jeanie would have never attempted it (hell, she would have never considered attempting it) if pure and simple desperation hadn't driven her to it.

She telepathically attacked Emma. Jeanie was almost acting on blind instinct, but a part of her conscious mind – that understood how terribly wrong this was – was amazed as well. She actually did it. She wasn't sure if this had ever been done before; she had breeched the White Queen's mental barriers! She was inside Emma's mind, searching desperately for a clue to Jonathan's whereabouts. Emma's thoughts and emotions seemed to explode around Jeanie like a hectic battlefield, but the girl's sheer desperation kept her focused, shouting at her: _Find Jonathan_!

And then, there he was in one of Emma's thoughts. He was sitting serenely in a field of blue flowers. Lupine. He looked like the same old Jonathan. The sun shone off his copper-colored locks of hair and that same devilish smile was playing around his lips. Jeanie felt her heart soar with sheer happiness and gratitude. She and her twin had reunited at last!

She had done wrong, very wrong, to find this place, but wasn't it all worth it? She would make this up to Emma somehow, if she had to pay for it for the rest of her life.

Where was this place anyway?

 _The Astral Plane_ , Jonathan's "voice" murmured in her mind. _You've found me, sister. Now watch what I can do!_

Jonathan held out his hand. In his palm was a tiny black bat, its fur tipped in silver. He closed his fingers over the little animal. Then his hand opened like a butterfly's wings and the bat was sitting obediently in his palm … only it was no longer a bat. At least, it no longer appeared to be. Its previously flat muzzle was long and wolfish and tipped in ripping fangs. Its little claws were now long and vicious and its eyes shone with a bloody light. It flew away with a horrifying screech.

 _Look what I can do now, sister!_ Jonathan spoke directly into Jeanie's mind as she looked on in horror. _HE has shown me how – how to change things. Make them better! Don't you see? The worlds we travel to, the world we were born into – I can make it better! I can create and destroy to my choosing to maintain a world of order which I will rule. WE shall rule! HE has shown me how this must be, sister._

 _H-HE_? Jeanie could only murmur telepathically in response.

Jonathan nodded enthusiastically. Then he glanced up at his sister; Jeanie gasped and stumbled several steps backwards. Jonathan was staring at her with both eyes. His right eye was always covered to contain his optic beam, but now the boy gazed at Jeanie with two eyes and they were … dead. Glassy and leering like those of an animal corpse. Yet they followed her, but the brightness of life had gone from them.

 _Apocalypse_! Jonathan replied telepathically as Jeanie continued to back up. Jeanie soundlessly mouthed the awful name. She had heard stories of the X-Men's most terrible enemy – Apocalypse, a being with almost unlimited power.

 _HE has Changed me, sister. HE has made me stronger, better! I can control my optic blast now_.

"Look what else I can do," he said in a husky voice.

Jeanie never heard her brother speak verbally and often wondered what his voice could sound like. Not like this. His very tones dripped with malice and ill intent.

"I-I'm going to help you, brother!" Jeanie replied verbally. What made her respond with spoken words? Was it the great surprise or the great fear gripping her heart? Both were as intense as the happiness and relief she had felt moments ago. She thought she had found her beloved brother, but this … _this_ was not Jonathan. This was not the charming boy with the mischievous smile and boundless devotion to his twin sister. This was … something else.

"No, Jeanie," Jonathan said, his voice low, but triumphant. Jeanie sensed her brother had come to a great revelation. "Look at me!" he laughed, but it wasn't the joyous sound Jeanie imagined her mute brother could make. It had a sinister edge. "Look how I have mastered my powers, realized my true potential, Jeanie! I can travel to alternate worlds, but I had no idea I could manipulate them and the creatures within them! Think how I can change the things around me." The boy leveled his sister with his frightening gaze. "Think how _you_ can!"

"N-No!" Jeanie whimpered.

"Sister, you have these gifts as well! We both do! Think what we can do; think what we can Change!"

Jonathan was encroaching on his sister, moving forward in a stealthy predatory way as Jeanie was stumbling backwards.

"Jeanie, let me help _YOU_!"

 ** _###_**

 **"** ** _Way down yonder_**

 ** _In the meadow,_**

 ** _Poor little baby crying Momma,_**

 ** _Birds and butterflies,_**

 ** _Flutter 'round his eyes_** **…"**

Jeanie's eyes snapped open in wakefulness.

She awoke from a troubled slumber humming the song Megan would sing when they were little kids together, perhaps because in her sleep Jeanie had recalled a memory of her and her best friend playing Pretty Ponies when they were small.

Jeanie rubbed her eyes and glanced around the room, Megan's room; they shared it when Jeanie came to visit the Summers on Winter Break. Meg's room was so different from the one Jeanie shared with her twin brother back home at the cabin in the boreal wilderness of the North. Meg's bedroom was very pretty, dainty and ornate. The bed was ruffled and blue; the walls were papered blue too with pictures and posters of baby animals and cheerful sayings like, "Hang in there!" or "It's almost 'Cat-turday!'" The clock on the wall ticked merrily and was shaped like a bunny. Meg's most prized porcelain horse figurines were displayed on a shelf high out of reach.

Jeanie's bedroom back home seemed Spartan and bare by comparison. Her Mama Laura tolerated nothing in her home that she didn't deem useful, so the twins' room was hung with the pelts of the animals Jonathan had trapped and the bright tapestries Jeanie wove on her loom that depicted bears, seals and reindeer. Jeanie's ornate beadwork was worked into the furs and hides that clothed the family and she made paints from the ochre and minerals she found on outings which she used to decorate tanned hides and caribou antlers she discovered when the big bulls shed after the autumn rut. Unlike her twin, Jeanie avoided hunting or trapping if she could. Laura scoffed at these colorful trappings her daughter created, but the clothes and hides Jeanie sewed were technically useful, so her stern Mama couldn't fault her.

Jeanie usually couldn't wait to get out from under Laura's strict watchful eye during the girl's visits to the Jean Grey School on Winter Break. This time was different, however; Jeanie almost missed Laura's no-nonsense attitude. She wondered if her fierce surrogate mother could offer a solution to this current dilemma. Jeanie was almost sure she could. Jeanie and Laura always seemed at odds these days, but Jeanie was deeply devoted to the fearsome woman who had raised her, the one known as Lady Wolverine. For Jeanie believed, just as she did with her biological mom Rachel, that Laura could solve any problem.

Or she _had_ until Jonathan's recent disappearance.

There was no problem the grownups couldn't solve. Hadn't Emma promised …?

 _Emma_ , Jeanie felt her guts shrivel up inside her. Jeanie had done the unthinkable; she had invaded another person's mind without their permission. She had invaded a telepath's.

She had invaded the White Queen's …

Immediately, a barrage of excuses screamed at her. _You did it for Jonathan! Your brother! You love him! MORE than Emma apparently! Yes, why was she holding back information that could save him?!_

Why had she been holding back? Jeanie knew why …

Apocalypse.

God … _Apocalypse_. The X-Men's greatest enemy. The reason the twins' father Franklin could never visit them in this dimension. The reason their Uncle Bobby was dead. Now the bastard had Jonathan.

Jeanie dug her nails deep into her palms until they drew blood, a habit she had unconsciously picked up from Laura.

Guilt beat Jeanie's brain like a cudgel. Why had she rushed into Emma's mind? Why hadn't she considered why her step-grandmother was holding back this information about the Astral Plane?

Tears welled in Jeanie's eyes. She looked at herself in Meg's vanity mirror which was framed with cute snapshots of her and her School friends, Rini Prescott and Howard Najeer, traveling to animal shows and 4-H competitions. Ugh, Howard got more pretentious-looking every time Jeanie saw him. Why the hell did a cute girl like Meg waste her time on him?

Jeanie was pretty and tall. She wasn't vain; it was a fact. She had a lot of freckles. Maybe too many. Like Mom, and like Jean Grey, she'd been told. And Megan who wasn't just her best friend – she was also technically her auntie. Half-auntie? Jeanie's head hurt. She thought of Emma's perfectly smooth unmarked skin and her stomach gave a heave.

 _Emma should hurt me, punish me, the way Mama Laura does when she's cross_ , Jeanie thought. _I deserve it. God, I deserve it so badly_ .

She tried to imagine what Laura would say. Would she hit her? Jeanie deserved worse than a beating. Meg's blue eyes would grow round. Even Ruby would be sickened and appalled. The Summers girls never even back-talked Emma. What would Rachel say? Jeanie had only ever idolized her mother; she had wanted to be just like her since she could remember.

 _I had to do it_ … was all Jeanie could tell herself. _I have to save Jonathan_.

Feeling ill, she staggered downstairs. The family room was empty; bright shafts of afternoon sunlight, swirling with dust-motes, poured in the windows. Where was everyone? Jeanie made to perform a psychic-scan of the area then realized the dampers her mother had placed in her mind inhibited her from even doing this.

Feeling frustrated and useless, she flung herself down on the sofa. She blinked in surprise. Someone had righted the television after Ray had knocked it over on the night they all arrived here. The TV was muted, but "Dragon Hearts," a program Jeanie and Meg watched when they were little, was playing silently on the screen.

Jeanie hummed the TV show theme song:

" _Dragon hearts, so full of life,_

 _Dragon warriors, skill unmatched,_

 _Lead us on a journey free of strife,_

 _On dragon scales our Fate is etched_ …"

On the TV screen, the show's hero and heroine, two children named Sophia and Ted, held onto a magical dragon scale as it transported them to an alternate dimension where dragons lived.

Another good thing about Winter Break here was television. Jeanie didn't have it back home. Of course, Meg and Ruby's mother didn't allow them to watch TV as much as they liked, but it was such a novelty to Jeanie though she always thought Dragon Hearts was a bit unimaginative. She could travel to alternate dimensions all the time and had met creatures far stranger than dragons. And she didn't need a crummy dragon scale to do it either. Jeanie enjoyed cheesy old sitcoms like "Jay & Jonas" and "The Family Psychedelic" much more.

Emma always said Jeanie had inherited her mother's poor taste.

Jeanie noticed something odd. The plastic and hard-rubber Pretty Ponies she and Meg used to play with when they were little were arranged all around the television. There was Pretty Plum and Violet Bouquet and Jellybean Sundae. Even Badger Tail was there (definitely looking the worse for wear). Jeanie hadn't seen them since she was a kid; she thought Meg had gotten rid of them.

"I found them in storage in the old School building," Scott hailed her as he walked into the room. He was carrying an old cardboard box that looked dusty and full of VHS tapes.

Jeanie glanced at her grandfather. She could not psychically detect him, but not because of the dampers placed in her mind. No telepath could. Grandpa Scott was one of those rare people whose thoughts and emotions were undetectable to even the most powerful psychics.

He was also one of the few people, like Laura, Jeanie had to verbally communicate with. But where that point was always a strain in Jeanie and Laura's relationship, Scott's presence always brought a sort of relief to Jeanie. His thoughts, his emotions, his pain and feelings weren't constantly bombarding her. Especially now, his quiet nature was appreciated.

Grandfather and granddaughter sat in companionable silence for awhile side-by-side on the sofa. Scott was always spoiling her, Laura said. He let Jeanie do things Meg and Ruby would never get away with, like openly flirting with boys. Jeanie didn't know why. Scott was strict and stern with just about everyone else, a lot like Laura. She wasn't sure if that is what all grandfathers did for their granddaughters or if perhaps there was something else that made her special to Scott.

It was really hard to tell. Besides being emotionally invulnerable, his eyes were constantly covered, so even his expressions were hard to read.

They watched Sophia singing a friendship song with her dragon pal Cass. "Why are you watching this show?" Jeanie asked him, breaking the silence. Her voice was always hoarse and rusty when she spoke verbally to others. It was weird how her voice could fall so smoothly into a conversation with Grandpa Scott. "Meg and I haven't watched it since we were little kids." She cocked an eyebrow at her grandfather. "Do _you_ watch it on your own?"

"No," Scott said with a grin, running a hand thru his hair, a habit he shared with Rachel and Ruby. "Not usually. It ... It's just nice holding onto some things, don't you think?"

Jeanie studied him with her wide blue eyes. There were thoughts lurking behind those ruby shades he always wore. She knew it. Jeanie wondered what they were. It was a problem she almost never encountered.

Scott appeared to be coming to a conclusion. Finally, he said: "When I was a kid, I didn't have much. I didn't have many things to hold onto, to help me remember the past. My past. Memories get blurry when you don't have a concrete thing to connect it to, see? Photos, toys, video games, you name it. I had a friend when I was a boy. He was a rich kid. I'll never forget when he got an Atari. We played that thing like it was our last day on Earth."

Jeanie stared at him. "Atari ... i-is that like a car?"

Scott frowned. "Um, sure. The point is, living life day-to-day, you forget. When life sucks so much, you adapt to it. You accept it. You fool yourself into thinking there's nothing better. Take me for example. I can only see in shades of red. I haven't seen other colors since I was a little boy. Sometimes, I forget what other colors look like. I just accepted that's the way it always would be. It sucks, but it isn't debilitating; at least, not to a point. I survived. But stamina, endurance, tenacity - these are usually coveted traits, but sometimes they work against us.

"Innocence isn't a bad quality, Jeanie Bean," he added with a smile, using Rachel's nickname for Jeanie which she hated. "It reminds us of what is important. Even if those important things seem silly."

Jeanie rolled her eyes at the use of her horrid pet name. "Like Dragon Hearts or Pretty Ponies?" she asked her grandpa.

"And this ..." Scott said, scuffling around in the cardboard box. He drew out a photo of what looked like Jeanie from just a few years ago - the girl pictured there appeared to be about 13 or 14 anyway. She was in a yellow sun-dress (a color Jeanie loathed) and was wearing a floppy blue sun-hat. She was squinting and laughing like someone had just told a joke.

Jeanie stared at the photo, feeling confused. "I ... don't remember that dress. Or that hat."

Scott chuckled, a sound she seldom heard. "That's because it isn't you. That's Jean Grey."

Jeanie almost couldn't believe it. She had never seen any photographs of her maternal grandmother before. There was a statue of Jean Grey-Summers at the School entrance wearing her Phoenix uniform - the same one Rachel wore now in honor of her mother. Jean Grey had always seemed like a character in a fairy tale, not an actual real person. Jeanie couldn't imagine her grandmother as a laughing little girl having fun with her friends.

"What was she laughing about?" Jeanie asked her grandpa.

"Bobby had frozen the lake ... again. On the Fourth of July, so we could all go ice-skating," Scott explained.

Jeanie stared hard at the photo. "Uncle Bobby died fighting Apocalypse ..."

Scott sighed. "Yes, I know."

 _Does he know_? Jeanie wondered, a sick feeling in her stomach. _Does he know the awful thing I did_?

Jeanie gently stroked the edges of the photo which had turned crisp and yellow with age. "You and Grandma Jean were in love?"

 _They must have been, to have Mama Rachel_ , Jeanie thought. _Isn't that the way it works? But then what about Emma? He had to be in love with HER to have Megan. And Ruby. Could you be in love with two people?_

"We were so much more than that. We were the very best of friends," Scott replied. "We did every single thing together. There was hardly a moment we were apart."

Again, it was so difficult for Jeanie to detect any emotion in this man who was her grandfather. Even his voice sounded even and calm. It was as if years of leadership in the field had toughened his every cell, teaching him to emit no sign of weakness, not even to the ones he loved most.

Especially to those he loved most.

 _What does it feel like for him?_ she wondered. _They were best friends. Partners. Teammates. They did everything together._

Just like Jeanie and Meg ...

"Is Meg going to be OK?" she asked in almost a whisper.

Scott peered at his granddaughter - or at least she thought he did.

"We don't know," he murmured, his voice, again, betraying nothing of his feelings. "She's never caused two telepathic storms in such a short period of time. Hank is with her now in his lab."

Jeanie pushed herself up off the sofa and gathered the Pretty Ponies up in her arms, even stupid Badger Tail.

"I'm going to take these to Meggie," she told Cyclops as she headed out the front door. "Maybe she doesn't want them anymore, but I still think they're important."


	19. A Possible Solution

**What up, my dudes? Whew, this is a long one, but worth it, I think! I certainly had fun picking Ruby's brain apart. Have a good one and PLEASE REVIEW!**

 **Please tell me if this story is good or awful. I certainly want to know.**

 **These characters belong to Marvel except for the Alvers twins, Oliza and Stefan Wagner and Mattie Jones. Also Mister Darcy is mine. The puppy, not the bloke from the Jane Austen book.**

 **-Thank you, Maria**

 ** _Chapter XIX: A Possible Solution_**

What she was doing was wrong. She knew it, but Ruby couldn't stop herself. Sneaking off. Lying to her parents. Keeping secrets from Meg. It was all worth it for this - especially now.

Home was terrible. Everything and everybody was so depressing. Ruby knew she should have been there to be supportive of her family during their suffering, but she couldn't take it anymore: Oli's nervousness, Rachel's sad dignity, Jeanie's empty shell of her former self and especially Meg and her extreme panic attacks.

Ruby had to escape and her newfound access to the Astral Plane offered that. She was there now, standing in the meadow of lupine flowers, a light breeze rustling her curls, her arms raised up over her head in happiness. It felt _so good_ to get out from under the oppressive cloud of sadness hanging over her home. She could live with the undercurrent of guilt she felt every time she sneaked off to play in the Astral Plane - sort of.

Ruby squinted up at the bright sky. Two huge bird-like creatures were circling above. They had enormous wingspans and great clawed feet, but with the large muscular bodies of lions. Griffins.

Watching them wistfully, Ruby wanted so badly to fly. The girl spread her arms, laughing. Being out from under the ominous atmosphere of her family made her feel so liberated and free ... she did feel lighter-than-air.

When she glanced back down, Ruby noticed, to her amazement, she was levitating a few inches above the ground. She was so surprised, she tumbled back down to the earth.

"That's a neat trick," a voice commented behind her.

Ruby looked around and saw the sitar-woman, the one Ruby and Meg had met when they had first accessed the Astral Plane, chuckling at Ruby minus the sitar.

"Hey! I remember you!" Ruby chirped, not fazed by the woman's teasing. Ruby usually was not; she was such a haphazard kid, she was rather used to others criticizing her clumsiness. "Sitar-lady!"

"Call me anything but late for breakfast," the woman replied good-naturedly. "You know, that's how I learned to fly. Think happy thoughts. Like in that movie, 'Peter Pan,' faith, trust and pixie dust ... except no pixie dust."

"Oh," Ruby replied, brushing herself off. She only understood a fraction of what the woman had just said. "Is ... that a good movie?"

"Great," the woman replied, a little smile playing around her lips.

"It's way harder than it looks. Flying, I mean," said Ruby. "Even Rachel says so."

"Well, of course it is. If you're telekinetic, you must view yourself as an object to move with your mind," the woman explained. "That isn't easy."

Ruby beamed. "S-So you mean I _am_ telekinetic?" she breathed with pure joy.

"A secondary mutation," the woman replied.

"I never thought I could be!" Ruby gushed happily. "I mean - Rachel is - but it came down to her from her Mamma, but me ...?"

"Who says you couldn't be?" the woman said. "I have known telekinetics who don't share Grey blood. Besides, children don't _always_ have powers similar to their parents. The same is true for you - and _Meg_ ... Don't you think she could benefit from this place?"

The woman said Meg's name in a strange way - a way that immediately made Ruby feel guilty and uncomfortable. Ruby was keeping secrets (specifically one big secret) from her sister - but here in the Astral Plane there were no secrets.

Ruby sat down cross-legged in front of the woman who sat down in the grass as well, careful not to crush the flowers. She felt a weird sense of relief. Ruby had never kept anything from anyone, especially her sister. It gave her an adrenaline rush, but was also taxing.

"W-Well, she didn't really like it, right?" Ruby said, a bit defensively.

Well, "didn't really" meant she caused a telepathic storm. Why did she do that? Ruby still hadn't figured out why. Granted, she hadn't really thought about it. She was too busy blowing things up on the Astral Plane. The Astral Plane was a place where Ruby's most colorful imaginings could come true.

Like that gigantic red tank she had imagined and then incinerated to bits. _Heh, heh_ ...

Ruby glanced at the woman and realized she was daydreaming. _Daydreaming within a daydream_ ... thought Ruby.

What had they been talking about?

"Meg," the woman said with a wry expression. She looked amazingly familiar wearing that look for some reason. Where had Ruby seen it before ...?

"Uuuuuh ..." Ruby hummed absently, losing track of her thoughts again.

"Meg could benefit from this place," the woman stated.

"She doesn't like it here. I told you that," Ruby said sharply. She didn't mean to snap, but she felt defensive. "When she came here the first time, she had one of her panic attacks. A telepathic storm. And, since Jonathan went missing ..." Ruby trailed off, frustrated and sad. Here on the Astral Plane, she could make anything she imagined come true, but back home in her own reality, things were awful and Ruby couldn't do anything to change it. "It seems Meg's been having one every other day."

"Meg only lashes out psychically when she feels threatened," the woman pointed out.

"What could she feel threatened by here?" Ruby asked her.

"Think about it."

Ruby glanced around, frowning. Meg could tend to take things a bit too seriously. It made sense she would be disdaining of a place like this where the silliest dream could come true - but _threatened_? The Astral Plane was fun. It didn't seem dangerous to Ruby.

The girl shrugged. "I'm not telepathic. Maybe that's why I can't sense a threat. I wouldn't know what to look for. I don't know it."

The woman placed her hand on Ruby's shoulder and looked deep into her eyes. It was impossible for Ruby to see colors. Everything from her perspective was black-and-white, but the woman seemed to peer at Ruby with a bright intense gaze. "But you know Meg," she said.

An intense feeling of safeness and security enveloped her, a feeling she hadn't had for what seemed like forever. It reminded her of lying snuggled close to Meg when they were little; Ruby had forgotten how much she missed it. She'd almost forgotten how much she missed Meg, hanging out with her sister, talking with her deep into the night, whispering words, sharing secrets and plotting mischief ... before Jonathan went missing and everything seemed to go to hell.

A wave of guilt hit Ruby. _But Meg doesn't know me. She doesn't know where I'm going. What I'm hiding_.

How could Ruby know what threatened Meg when Ruby herself wasn't being honest with her sister? When Ruby wasn't being honest with herself?

"There is a reason this _feels_ wrong, Ruby," the woman advised her in a gentle voice. Her voice sounded so familiar, but Ruby felt too miserable to think about it.

"I-I just wanted a place to escape for awhile. Home is so horrible," Ruby said. Tough Ruby Summers almost never cried. In fact, she'd made almost every boy at the Jean Grey School cry, but now she was close to tears.

"Then try to make it better. What you're learning here, how you're getting stronger, your newfound telekinesis, these things you learn here can be useful in your reality. They can help the people you love," the woman explained. "Meg. Jeanie."

"Maybe even Jonathan?" Ruby said hopefully.

The woman smiled at her. There seemed to be ... _pride_ in her expression. Ruby gazed at her. Why did she seem so familiar? Her oval face. Curly hair. Freckles. Lots of freckles. Her eyes seemed so bright and expressive. What color could they be?

Color. It was one of those abstract concepts everyone talked about to Ruby, but she could never truly understand it. What were colors like?

Since he was a small boy, her Dad couldn't see colors other than shades of red. Cyclops sometimes tried to describe other colors to his youngest daughter as he remembered them from when he was small, but Ruby still didn't get it. But then Ruby sensed that sort of thing was really hard to tell someone about; you had to show them and Scott Summers had never really had a gift for words.

"You and Scott. How alike you are, Ruby Summers," the woman said, her eyes filled with a wistful sadness.

"Please, what is your name?" Ruby asked softly, in a voice very gentle for her.

The woman smiled and blinked warmly at the girl. "Jean Grey."

Ruby's mind seemed on fire with questions, but the woman held up her hand and gestured towards a lone figure who had appeared nearby. A boy, tall with copper-colored hair.

"Jonathan," Jean Grey explained simply.

"He's here?" Ruby said, breathless with happiness.

"Yes, but there is danger here also," Jean warned.

Ruby glanced at her in confusion - and disappointment. It was true then. Ruby couldn't sense any danger here. Her shoulders sagged.

Then a sensation slapped her like cold water splashing her face. A feeling that screamed, " _Danger! Run!_ "

 _Telepathy_? Ruby wondered. _I DO have it then_?

"No," Jean Grey responded because, of course, Ruby's thoughts were apparent here. "Instinct."

Ruby could feel it crawling up her spine like a million spiders. A source of danger was howling at her and it originated from Jonathan. The boy was glaring at Ruby with both eyes - one of his eyes was usually covered to contain the optic beam he had inherited from Cyclops, his grandfather and Ruby's father. Now, however, both his eyes glared at Ruby with menace.

"J-Jon?" Ruby stammered.

"No. _Apocalypse_ ," said Jean Grey. "My grandson has been influenced, tainted by the most evil being in your or any universe."

Jonathan raised the telekinetic spear he always carried with him and his hand and arm morphed to become an enormous limb larger than a tree, bearing down on Ruby, ready to smash her to pieces.

Ruby reacted out of pure instinct, the instinct of a leader, she had inherited from her father. She shoved Jean out of the way. She met Jonathan's attack with her pure unfiltered optic beams. Horror at attacking her cousin (or at least what appeared to be her cousin though her instincts told her as well he was not - he was something _more_ \- something so much more terrible) was only a dull pulse in the back of her mind, however, as she whirled with agility to avoid his counterattack.

 _Counterattack_! Nothing Ruby was aware of could withstand her optic blasts. She alone of all Cyclops' descendants had inherited the full power of his concussive eye beams. And indeed her concussive beams seemed to have blown a hole in Jonathan's middle, but his flesh warped weirdly to heal the wound and make his body like Ruby's optic blasts had never touched him.

"Apocalypse's evil influence!" Jean warned, her voice low with dread.

The full impact of what Ruby had witnessed and its implications were beginning to hit her. Jonathan ... _Apocalypse_! The X-Men's greatest foe? Ruby had never even dared utter the awful name though she knew Apocalypse had threatened to wreck havoc on her universe before she was even born. Her half-sister, Rachel, and the X-Men had stopped him, but at a horrible price.

 _And I attacked Jonathan_! Ruby thought. Her brain, temporarily numbed by the primal drive to survive, was beginning to adhere to the implications of what she had just done. Ruby had never harmed another living thing with her powers. Cyclops' daughter could be rough and rowdy, but she would never intentionally hurt anyone ...

 _Until now_ ... she thought, her eyes wide with disbelief and her heart thudding with agonizing guilt as adrenaline coursed thru her veins like a drug. _What have I done?_

 _Had Rachel ever had to hurt someone with her powers? Had Dad? Does it feel like this? Like its burning a hole in your soul?_ Ruby wondered.

"Protect yourself, little one," Jean Grey advised Ruby, giving her a telekinetic shove. "You can't face him, even with your optic beams. Not now. Get out! Get help!"

Jean suddenly cupped Ruby's face in her small slim hands and -

Ruby saw - _something_! Jean Grey's eyes flashed and they were suddenly sparkling brilliantly. Ruby unconsciously reached for her glasses, but realized Jonathan's attack had knocked them to the ground.

For the first time she could remember, Ruby wasn't wearing her optic visor!

And she realized what the sparkling brilliance in Jean's eyes was - _color_!

 _Green_! Ruby thought to herself in wonder. _Her eyes must be green! The same color as the grass here! Meg said grass is green!_

Jean smirked at Ruby, her step-daughter, before Ruby felt the pull of unconsciousness that meant she was leaving the Astral Plane.

The beautiful telekinetic murmured humorously: "So are _yours_ , Ruby."

 ** _###_**

Heather's pups were four weeks old now. They were less wobbly now and beginning to take their first enthusiastic albeit clumsy explorations of the world. Heather was kept lively chasing after her brood, putting her herding instincts to use rounding up her wayward offspring back into her basket.

Ruby awoke from her exhaustive time on the Astral Plane to Mister Darcy, her own puppy, licking her face. The light-coated pup was the runt of the litter and usually shunned by his sisters during their rough-and-tumble games. Darcy was forced to seek out more unconventional playmates, like Ruby.

Ruby would go missing for hours at the time from her own home reality when she went to the Astral Plane to train and play. She often "woke up" in her own reality here among Heather's puppies in Oliza's quarters which the woman shared with her children and dogs.

Ruby gingerly touched her face and realized she was wearing her shades, just like her dad. On the Astral Plane, they had fallen off, but somehow Ruby had contained her optic beams.

And she had seen _color_ \- well a color other than black-or-white - for the first time in her life.

She had _never_ done that before. Was such a feat only possible on the Astral Plane? she wondered.

Ruby divided virtually all of her time now between the Astral Plane and her puppy Darcy. She was devoted to training herself and her dog, but there was another reason for Ruby's behavior – anything that would have taken her away from her family and home was fine by her. Prior to Jonathan's disappearance, Ruby rarely took meals at the School mess hall, now she rarely missed one there. The only time she was at home now was when she sneaked into bed late at night.

"Hey, buster," she murmured to Darcy, on eye-level with the Sheltie puppy's pudgy legs. His backside shook, making his entire small body vibrate. Ruby chuckled as she pulled the pup close to her. Darcy showered her with wet smelly puppy kisses.

Ruby kept her promise to Cyclops. She was already starting to train her dog with what time she didn't spend on the Astral Plane training herself – or at least she was making an attempt to train Darcy.

"All right … _Stay_ , boy," she ordered the pup to be still. Darcy did make an effort, but then he spotted his own stubby tail waving enthusiastically. He yapped and fell to chasing it. Ruby sighed.

Oliza walked inside her apartment sitting room from her bedroom. Eleanor and Martin weren't with her and the woman was wearing her X-Men uniform with her sleek dark hair tied up and out of the way which meant the team was either meeting or about to depart on a mission. Oliza was a member of the team under the codename "Agate." She was slipping the agate crystal earrings she always wore into her earlobes. Oliza had some unusual tastes, both figuratively and literally, Ruby thought. Nightcrawler's pretty daughter loved gemstones. In fact, by gazing into certain precious stones, Oliza could discern the future – but only a few minutes into the future – a skill which definitely came in handy on the field during dangerous and delicate missions.

However, Oliza also had a literal taste for gems as well. Ruby had seen the woman munch on precious stones the same way other people ate popcorn. Needless to say, this was an extremely expensive taste and Oliza usually only rewarded herself with a delicious sapphire or emerald on a special occasion, like her birthday. Her longtime boyfriend, Ricardo, who was Eleanor and Martin's father would sometimes bring her a gemstone snack as well.

This aspect of Ruby's friend and mentor made her somewhat nervous at times. Ruby's own skin was bioorganic ruby quartz crystal. There were times she wondered if she made Oliza hungry though Oliza had never let on that this was the case.

Oliza was gazing at her student with her strangely light eyes which everyone told Ruby were amber-brown. (Of course, Ruby had never seen _that_ color.) Oliza was giving Ruby _That Look_. All the grownups looked at Ruby, Meg and all their cousins that way nowadays. The expression was a mixture of pity and morbid curiosity. Ruby had grown to hate it, but she had to guiltily admit it helped. Oliza was a stringent teacher; she would have definitely taken offense to Ruby camping out in her private quarters, but now when Oliza found Ruby here among Heather's pups, she never scolded her student or reported her behavior to her parents.

Not that Emma and Scott would have done much, Ruby thought. She felt traitorous thinking that way about her usually collected in-control parents, but they seemed as distracted, sad and pitying of the children as all the other adults.

 _Your half-sister wants to see you_ , Oliza signed to Ruby, not asking what the hell Ruby was doing in her apartment or how the hell she had gotten there when it was locked from the outside. Ruby had been disappearing and reappearing in odd places since she first gained access to the Astral Plane, but none of the grownups questioned her about it. Ruby expected her mamma and dad to go insane with outrage – Ruby had never been so rebellious and disobedient – but they didn't confront her about it.

Ruby suspected Rachel had something to do with this unexpected reaction and now Oliza's message seemed to confirm it. Excitement mixed with dread in Ruby stomach as she scrambled up off the floor. She knew Oliza, dressed out in her gear, was on her way to a team meet. Ruby had never been allowed to meet with the X-Men in the mysterious sublevels far beneath the School. None of the younger students were allowed to.

And recruitment on the team of superheroes was forbidden to anyone under 18 – the recruitment process was so rigorous, no one underage would probably have withstood it. Ruby Frost-Summers, however, had never tried before.

She scooped Mister Darcy up into the bib of her overalls as she often did nowadays so the pup could ride along with his perky face sticking out under her chin.

 _Stay_ , Oliza ordered Heather with her hands as her mistress departed with Ruby and Darcy in tow. Heather, being a very proper Sheltie, obeyed, of course, but Ruby could tell the dog disliked it and not just because Ruby was toting her youngest pup in her overalls. Heather wasn't just Oliza's service dog; she was trained to fight in the field just as her mistress was and accompanied Oliza on missions. Motherhood was making the Sheltie very antsy and restless.

Noting Heather's absence, Ruby concluded the X-Men were indeed not going a mission. Rachel wouldn't have invited her along anyway, but just being allowed to attend a team meeting was a pretty great honor in Ruby's opinion.

Oliza certainly wasn't saying anything – with her hands or otherwise. However, she gently took Ruby's hand and they teleported away from Oliza's quarters. Ruby had teleported a couple times, usually alongside Oliza who could teleport others as long as they touched her, and it always felt like drinking ice water really fast. It made Ruby feel dizzy and sick.

The entrance to the School sublevels was a mystery. Only the X-Men knew of it and they were sworn to secrecy. On the very rare occasions visitors to the School or older students were allowed down there, Oliza, Kymri or Merle – all gifted with teleportation powers – 'ported the guests there, so the secret of the labyrinthine sublevels was kept.

As Ruby 'ported with Oliza, the world blurred around her in an indecipherable swirl. How the hell did Oliza do this day-to-day? It felt as though she and her teacher were standing still and the world was rushing by them at breakneck speed. Finally, the world seemed to come to a halt as their blurry surroundings took shape into objects around them. Ruby staggered, struggling to keep her feet.

Oliza smirked at her student. Ruby knew her as a stern teacher and mentor, but others, like Rachel and Emma, said Oliza Wagner had a reputation as a trickster and prankster. Ruby had never known Agate's father, Kurt Wagner, but he had been one of the many "uncles" in the original X-Men who had raised Rachel from babyhood. Rachel said when she was little scarcely a day passed when her Uncle Kurt wasn't playing a joke on someone. However, a lot like Oli, he was a kind soul and was so charming and good-looking most of his schemes were forgiven (though not forgotten) on the whole. And, like many women, Rachel admitted to being quite smitten with him.

Judging by her natural finesse and prowess, Oliza certainly had the capability to be tricky, Ruby thought, though the woman seemed quite serious around her students. Ruby wondered if things were different for Oliza among her fellow X-Men. _I'll soon find out!_ Ruby thought excitedly as she was being invited to this meeting of the super-powered team. She felt very grownup.

Oliza had 'ported them to a hallway outside the War Room in a secret sublevel far beneath the Jean Grey School. Ruby had never been there, but she knew it was because of the faintly glowing telekinetic shield hovering around the door. The telekinetic shield was created and maintained by Rachel and no one, not even someone _Gifted_ with teleportation, could cross that threshold unless Phoenix allowed it.

Others were gathered outside the War Room. They glanced up brightly when Oliza appeared in the trademark puff of smoke that heralded the teleportation of all Nightcrawler's descendants; some even smiled at them – including young Simon Alvers (AKA Tremor) who had joined the X-Men just two years ago. Simon was 20 years old, slender, with tousled brown hair and very gentle grey eyes. Thought quite young, he was already a teacher at the Jean Grey School. He taught several grades, including Ruby's math grade, and had a reputation for being quite serious-minded. Tremor, however, was quite kind and fair. Ruby liked him a lot.

Standing alongside Tremor was his identical twin brother Hecktor Alvers (AKA Richter). Ruby knew identical twins were supposed to look alike and the Alvers brothers did, but she never had a hard time telling them apart. Nobody could confuse the two, Ruby thought, as their personalities were so different. The Earth trembled when the Alvers twins were in any way agitated or troubled. Simon did his best to keep his emotions in check, but Hecktor wore them on his sleeve.

He was a brash young man, restless and impertinent, and happiest when he was causing trouble and, therefore, an earthquake. He was only two minutes younger than Simon, but seemed much younger. Rachel had her hands full keeping Richter in line; the co-leader of the X-Men had deliberated long and hard about including Hecktor on the team, but Tremor had at last convinced Phoenix to recruit both brothers. Simon would not join without his twin and, besides, Richter was an excellent fighter though Ruby wondered if it was worth Rachel's time having Hecktor as a soldier since she was constantly reigning him in.

Now, Richter paced with what seemed like perpetual agitation and, as they were indeed underground, the Earth around them shivered. He glowered at Ruby as she appeared alongside Oliza even as Simon greeted his student with smile.

"Hi, Rube," Tremor said.

"What the hell is little One-Eye doing here?" Hecktor growled.

Ruby wanted to blow a hole in Hecktor's stupid smug face, but Oliza put one hand on Ruby's shoulder and made a very rude sign in Richter's direction that made Ruby giggle and blush. The Earth shook more violently than its usual vibration when Hecktor was around.

"Heck, stoppit …" Simon warned his twin. He was a gentle man, but could do more to contain his maverick brother than Rachel or even Cyclops could.

Hecktor shot Ruby a dirty look and muttered: "This is no place for kids!"

 _Leave then_ , Oliza signed at Richter with a smirk.

Hecktor huffed and returned to his cagey pacing. Like just about everyone else, Oliza disliked Hecktor as much as she liked Simon. Stefan walked up to Oliza and bumped her shoulder affectionately with his as a way of telling his sister to settle down. Like Oliza, he didn't speak; Ruby wasn't sure if he could. He rarely even signed, preferring body language to any other form. Stefan, codenamed "Gecko," gazed at Ruby with his mellow eyes and smiled at her puppy, holding out one long finger to scratch Darcy between his eyes.

Stefan was an odd one, Ruby thought, even by _Gifted_ standards. He had strange sticky pads on his fingertips and toes and he could scale walls like a spider. His skin was covered in dark-blue-almost-black scales which shimmered iridescently in the light, but could hide him like a shadow in the darkness.

What made him truly strange, to Ruby at least, was the fact shy Stefan had a second identity as a girl named Sophie. If something drastic happened in Stefan's life, his sex could change. He didn't do it often; it had occurred only once since Ruby had known him. But all Stefan's friends accepted this trait as a part of him - or her, depending.

Gecko was an ace at stealth missions and could sneak up on just about anyone, but he preferred gentle quiet activities like painting. He was the fine arts teacher at the School and, like Simon, he earned his students' respect thru his reputation. Stefan never had to be brash and loud like Hecktor to command anyone's attention.

Needless to say, Meg flourished under the art teacher's tutelage while Ruby floundered. She just hadn't the time for focusing on such painstaking tedious activities. But she liked Stefan despite his strangeness and penchant for quiet "sitting-down" type things. Ruby felt an odd wave of protectiveness when she regarded Stefan in the same way she regarded her small puppy Darcy.

Merle (AKA Snake-Eyes) and Kymri (AKA Capricorn) were talking quietly a bit aside from the others. Both cousins had horns. Kymri's were short and spiky like a goat's while Merle's horns curled down and around her long ears like a ram's. Occasionally, Merle's skinny forked tongue would flick out to taste the air. Merle's eyes were empty and sightless, she had been born blind, but she could "see" like a snake - a pit viper to be exact. "Pits" near her cheekbones allowed her to detect the heat generated by every living thing - Merle could even sense another creature's emotional state, health and even at times intentions thru their distinct heat signature.

Merle was so talented not even Olivier would cross her; Ruby's cousin could only elude telepathic abilities, not Merle's crazy snake-powers.

At 19, Kymri was the youngest member on the team and very chatty and vivacious, at least chattier than Merle, who (like many of the blue members of the X-Men was short of words). She looked very charming and animated alongside the somber-looking Snake-Eyes.

Toad and Firestar trotted (or in his case, hopped) up to round out the team. Merle's powers went a bit haywire when Mattie showed up as Firestar's _Gift_ was constantly emitting massive amounts of heat to varying degrees. Now, however, everyone glanced up to study Mattie Jones with interest. Ruby noticed it too - Mattie seemed to glow, as if her heat-generated powers had taken on a visual form. And it was coming from within her, not in a halo around her.

Toad, smiling in a proud way, draped his arm protectively around his girlfriend. The other X-Men sighed in a collective sound of happy understanding, but Ruby didn't understand what everyone else seemed to just realize.

Before she could ask, the War Room door opened and Rachel stepped out; the pink telekinetic shield dropped simultaneously. Phoenix took in everyone in a collective glance, only sparing a nod at Ruby.

Ruby stood up a bit straighter; she had been awaiting this chance her whole life. She would be on her best behavior. For a moment, she regretted bringing Mister Darcy, for the puppy was beginning to wriggle and squirm in the girl's overalls.

"Be still," she murmured to the pup, but he started to whine instead.

 _Still_ , Oliza signed to the puppy and Darcy immediately stilled.

Ruby felt a bit embarrassed. Of course Darcy would respond to hand signals better as he watched and imitated his mother, Heather, who obeyed Oliza's commands. Ruby would have to double-down on training her pup; she had plans to make Darcy ready for the field just like his dam.

Hecktor grumbled as he pushed past Ruby into the War Room. Rachel glanced sharply at her soldier, but said nothing.

Well, Ruby expected the War Room to look ... _cooler_. It looked like the board meeting rooms at School. There was just a long table the team gathered around.

Ruby did her best to stifle her disappointment, knowing full well her thoughts were quite open to her telepathic half-sister. She wanted desperately to impress Rachel so she would consider including Ruby on the team.

Rachel looked gaunt and tired. Dark shadows hung under her eyes and she appeared thinner ... and much older. Ruby knew her half-sister wasn't eating well - if anything at all. Rachel barely touched her food at the Summers' family meals, even with Rogue cooking and Rogue was an amazing cook. She made all sorts of Rachel's favorite dishes from when Phoenix was a little girl to tempt her niece ... or at least that's what Meg had told Ruby, Ruby thought with a guilty twinge. Ruby never took meals at home anymore. Not even Marie's famous fried chicken could coax her there.

"Where is Daddy today?" Hecktor sneered. Ruby knew he could be an asshole, but she was shocked Richter would use that tone with his leader. Rachel, however, only scowled at the youngest Alvers twin.

"We were debriefed earlier that Cyclops would address us, Phoenix," Kymri added. "Concerning an anonymous matter ..."

She spoke in a far more respectful tone, but her voice had that curious edge the grownups outside the family spoke with that Ruby had become accustomed to these days.

Rachel planted her palms on the War Room table to address the X-Men. Her voice was even and measured even as her internal torment was apparent, to Ruby at least.

"Genosha is currently under siege," Rachel said.

Shock rippled thru the assembled heroes. Ruby was bewildered. She had visited Genosha when she was very small. She could barely remember the island nation that was the sovereign head of Magneto's "Mutant Empire." That was an archaic term to Ruby's generation. She couldn't remember a time when her kind, _homo superior_ , the _Gifted_ , was the minority species to human beings on the planet. Ruby's parents remembered it well. There was time, they told their daughters, when _Gifted_ was usually referred to as "mutant" and not in a flattering sense. Mutants were barely tolerated by their human counterparts at best; they were usually openly persecuted, rounded up and exterminated like animals.

The mutant Magneto had established Genosha as a haven for his people during those dark times. They had flocked there and Magneto's Mutant Empire had grown strong.

But that was ancient history to someone as young as Ruby.

Now, the tables had turned. Humans had all but died out, Ruby knew, except for a few reclusive settlements. _She_ had never met a human being that she knew of.

Magneto's tight-fisted power over Genosha had eventually been passed down to his granddaughter, a mysterious woman named Talia, called "Nocturne" or the Night Queen by her people. She was a reclusive, but benevolent ruler as far as Ruby understood - and excessively powerful.

While Magneto's nation had been a rallying point for persecuted mutants, others (perhaps just as many) had sought asylum at the Schools established by the X-Men, such as this one, the Jean Grey School, formerly known as Xavier's, or its sister School run by Rogue, where young, displaced and often orphaned mutants learned to control their extreme and sometimes dangerous powers.

While her grandfather was often at odds with the super-powered team, the Night Queen was on excellent terms with the X-Men as far as Ruby could tell, which was fortunate since Talia was not only the granddaughter of Magneto, one of the most powerful beings to ever draw breath, but the daughter of the Scarlet Witch, a _Gifted_ woman even more formidable than he.

As for Nocturne, she was so powerful her abilities weren't even clearly defined – no one really knew her exact power-set (Talia had teleportation, telekinesis and echolocation at her disposal and that was what a green novice like _Ruby_ knew about her) or even how they exactly worked which just added to the aura of mystery surrounding Genosha and its strange ruler.

So that just shocked Ruby all the more when Rachel said Talia's nation was under siege.

"By who?!" Tremor asked, the walls shaking slightly from his own nerves, not his brother's, for once.

It was like venturing into a bear's cave to disturb her cubs, Ruby thought. Only someone very strong or very stupid would dare threaten the Night Queen's domain.

Rachel eyed her team. Suddenly she swiped her hand over the War Room table and a perfect miniature replica of the island nation of Genosha shimmered into existence on the tabletop. Ruby wasn't sure if Rachel was projecting this image using her telepathy or if it was some War Room device. Either way, it was amazing; it captured every aspect of the island nation from the colossal statue of Magento at the city's heart to the fur seals that inhabited its rocky beaches.

Rachel stooped to eye-level with the mini-city and even saw its inhabitants strolling casually along its strange glowing streets.

"Talia herself, most likely," Rachel replied. "Nothing sentient can come in or get out."

"In order for her to do this, she had to feel severely threatened," Oliza suddenly spoke up.

Ruby and everyone else turned to Agate in shock. Ruby had known Oliza her entire life and had never heard her speak. The blue woman's voice was hoarse, but it was also calm and even. However, Ruby sensed for Oliza to do even this, something drastic had to have occurred.

"Talia is my sister – our sister," Oliza stated, gesturing briefly at Stefan, who regarded everyone else with his usual shy expression. "Same father, different mother. As you know," Oliza added.

Rachel nodded. Everyone else was staring at Oliza as though she had grown a second head – their bewilderment at her speech or this revelation, Ruby wasn't sure. Personally, she was shocked at both.

"Tally was the firstborn. Her powers were always superior to ours," Oliza went on talking casually as if her teammates weren't gawking at her. "She is hyper-sensitive. Not only in the five senses others usually possess, but she could detect a threat with no scent, sound or sight, I believe. She wouldn't do this consciously normally. She would react in a way similar to the reactions little Meg has been having," Oliza said, with a small respectful nod at Rachel as not to offend her for speaking so frankly about her ultra-powerful half-sister.

Oliza leaned back and clasped her wrist with one hand, a resting position Ruby was familiar with as one Oliza took following a fencing match. It signaled the end of the longest speech she had made in her adult life.

Rachel pursed her lips and nodded in reply. "The X-Men will depart for Genosha immediately. Your gear should be prepped in the Ready Room."

She pushed her fingers thru the tangle of her red hair as she trudged towards the War Room door.

"Mattie is excused from this mission as she is indefinitely from all others until she and I see fit for her to continue on the team," Rachel said tiredly.

It was another shock for Ruby; she couldn't think of a worse disgrace than being suspended from the team. What had mild-mannered Mattie done to deserve it? Ruby wondered. But Rachel smiled her first genuine smile since her arrival here as she passed Firestar and gently caressed Mattie's cheek in an affectionate way.

"Congrats, darling," Rachel said sadly, squeezing Mattie's hand.

Mattie nodded, tears welling up in her eyes. Ruby had absolutely no idea what was going on, but she did notice the sad note of resentment in her half-sister's weary voice and wondered at it.

Rachel straightened up and turned to address her team. "My son Jonathan is gone. He is as good as dead." She spoke mechanically; if she had screamed and beaten her breast, it would have scared Ruby less. "He has been taken over by Apocalypse."

Many of the young team members gasped. Few of them had even been alive when the X-Men fought the powerfully evil being. Oliza and Stefan had been little children when it happened, but even their calm expressions seemed forced.

"Apocalypse is using my son as bait," Rachel continued in the same monotone that so frightened Ruby. "The bastard will do whatever it takes to return to this dimension. We must, in turn, do whatever it takes to ensure he doesn't. I theorize this is why Talia has put up a telekinetic force-field around her people to protect them. According to what Oliza says, Talia has sensed his threat. Nocturne is supremely powerful. I think even Apocalypse would be hard-pressed to breech any barriers erected by the Night Queen."

Rachel walked out of the War Room. Everyone stood around, stunned, except Stefan who scurried out after Phoenix. Not even temperamental Richter had anything to say. Ruby, feeling in a daze, shuffled after her half-sister into the hallway. She spotted Stefan clutching his funny-looking beads which he always carried around. He would sometimes hold them and gently murmur to them; Ruby found his behavior bizarre for a grownup person. She thought only little kids played with toys, but no one ever corrected Stefan for his strange behavior and if Ruby ever questioned it the adults shushed her and told her not to be rude.

Ruby didn't really mind (honestly, she'd never really thought much about it), only now Stefan was quietly trying to get Rachel's attention with his silly beads. Indignation welled up inside Ruby's chest. She knew it was horribly impertinent to rebuke a grownup over any matter, but she felt angry at Stefan for bothering Rachel with his stupid toys.

But as Ruby stalked over, Rachel gently took Stefan's hands, holding the beads, in hers and squeezed them. Stefan smiled, seemingly satisfied, and 'ported away in a puff of smoke.

Rachel gazed at her half-sister. Ruby knew Rachel couldn't detect any memories Ruby had of the Astral Plane (well, Emma and Megan couldn't, so Ruby just assumed Rachel couldn't either), but Ruby still felt like squirming under her half-sister's piercing blue eyes.

"Come with me ..." Rachel instructed Ruby and turned to walk away, taking for granted that her half-sister followed.

Hecktor, that asshat, was gazing belligerently after them. At any other time, Ruby would have been smug and very proud to be seen walking with the co-leader of the X-Men, but now she felt an ominous dread and guilt churning around in her stomach.

The half-sisters entered the elevators at the end of the hallway and stood in awkward silence as the elevators carried them up to the School ground level. Ruby wished Oliza or Stefan 'ported them up to the School ground floor, but Ruby suspected Rachel wanted to take this time alone with her half-sister.

Ruby also suspected why.

But right now Ruby felt like being stubborn. She was sick of everyone on her back right now.

"So ... why is Stefan allowed to play with toys even though he's a grown man?" Ruby asked, breaking the silence.

She didn't get it. Ruby had never been into really sappy toys like Meg was. Meg, however, still kept some of her pony figurines on display, but these were purely decorative. Their parents had made it clear, around the time the sisters were 10 and 11, that they were too old for playthings.

Rachel smiled and even chuckled, not that wistful, sardonic faux-amusement she had been displaying since she got here. Her humorous expression seemed purely genuine.

"Stefan isn't playing with toys, Rube," she explained. "Those are rosary beads. He uses them for praying ..."

Ruby gazed in confusion at Rachel.

Rach ran her hands thru her hair with her trademark lopsided smile. "It - It's very hard to explain. You see ... Well, it's something that helps Stefan _feel_ better, even when he can't do anything about something, do you see?"

This made a little more sense to Ruby. "Oooh, kinda like Meg's crochet or your puzzles? It helps him focus and relax?"

Rachel frowned. "Well, sort of." She shook her curly head, so like Ruby's own tangled locks. "Like I said ... it is very hard for me to explain to you. Kurt, Stefan's father, used rosary beads and did his best to impress the rosary on me, but I was very little then. I didn't really understand it. I still don't really." Rachel laughed, a light happy sound Ruby had sorely missed. "Kurt was a charming devil, full of jokes and fun, but still thoughtful and kind. You would have liked him. I had a huge crush on him when I was a kid."

Ruby's eyebrows tilted upwards. Rachel sometimes told her and Meg stories about her childhood, but it was still very hard for Ruby to imagine the formidable Phoenix as an impressionable little girl with a crush.

"Nightcrawler was Talia's father?" Ruby said. That sentence sounded funny coming out of her mouth. Talia was an enormously powerful creature. How could she belong to a man Rachel spoke of with such familiarity?

"Umm-hmm," Rach hummed.

"'Liza said they didn't have the same Mamma ..." Ruby replied dubiously. "That's strange."

Rachel smirked. "Not really. After all, you and I don't have the same Mamma." Rachel chuckled warmly at Ruby's surprised "Oh!" expression. "But that's never come between us, has it?"

Ruby smiled in reply, but the guilt in her heart was proving to be a weighty burden. Rachel cocked an eyebrow at Ruby. Her half-sister couldn't detect any memories of the Astral Plane in Ruby's mind, but she knew Rachel absorbed others' emotions like a sponge. She could certainly feel Ruby's potent feelings of guilt and shame.

But Rachel didn't press Ruby. It was one reason Ruby had agreed to meet with her (aside from meeting with the X-Men, her heroes) and the reason the youngest Summers was avoiding her parents and Meg. Rachel was a lot like Uncle Hank in that way.

"Talia has almost unlimited power; she's nearly invulnerable," Ruby mused. "Oliza and Stefan are powerful, but they can't touch ... the Night Queen." It still sounded weird calling Nocturne Oliza and Stefan's _sister_. "I mean, we have different Mamma's, but we're equally powerful," Ruby concluded.

"Well, aren't you the modest one?" Rachel said narrowing her eyes playfully at her half-sister.

"More or less," Ruby flushed, grinning. But in a way, it was true. Ruby was the only Summers to inherit the full enormous capability of her father's optic blasts. "But why is Talia so superior to her half-brother and sister?" she asked.

"Tally's mother was Wanda Maximoff," said Rachel.

"The Scarlet Witch," Ruby breathed. The very mention of that name sent delightful shivers down her spine. It was synonymous with supreme power.

"And Oliza and Stefan's mother was Amanda Sefton." Rachel glanced at Ruby. "A human."

Ruby could tell Rachel wanted to laugh at her half-sister again; Ruby knew her mouth was hanging open like a cartoon character.

"Nightcrawler dated a _human_?"

Rachel grinned. "Nightcrawler dated everyone. He was a terrible flirt. Ladies loved him."

 _Hmm ... a bit like Olivier_ , Ruby mused, thinking of her dashing handsome cousin.

"Tell me what Talia is like," Ruby asked for she knew Phoenix and Nocturne were quite close friends, though Ruby had never met her.

Rachel's smile vanished. "She was very studious. She took her responsibilities seriously and was always seeking ways to improve herself. She had her father's kind heart, but not much of his playful nature. We always had to drag her out to have fun."

Ruby noted Rachel's use of the past tense. A question burned in her mind and she could tell Rachel was struggling not to probe her half-sister's almost palpable thoughts. When Rachel was around someone with such strong emotions and thoughts, abstaining from using her telepathy was like ignoring someone screaming at her.

"Do you ever visit Ta ...Talia anymore?" Ruby asked. She'd almost called the Night Queen "Tally."

Ruby felt a terrific pressure around her in the small space of the elevator, sort of like her body's reaction to a high elevation. As the sister and daughter of extremely powerful telepaths, she knew this was caused by a psychic being _very_ upset or agitated.

 _Had she said something wrong_? Ruby wondered nervously.

"I haven't seen Talia since the X-Men fought Apocalypse," Rachel said sadly. "Something very bad happened to her during that time."

Ruby knew at this point (hell, before this point) Scott and Emma would have changed the subject, but Rachel plowed ahead bravely which greatly surprised her half-sister. No one, not even Meg, had ever treated Ruby as an equal, an adult, primed for the harsh realities of life.

"Talia lost her son, Michael Andre," Rachel murmured. "And her husband, John."

Ruby knew it must have been something awful, but ... _damn_. It was bad, but now Ruby understood just how much and how much talking about it affected her half-sister. Jeanie and Jonathan had been born just prior to the X-Men's battle with Apocalypse; that meant Talia's son had only been an infant at that time. Ruby's stomach hurt.

"Tally sort of ..." Rachel trailed off, clenching her fists. "Changed. She'd protect her people to her last drop of blood, but she refused visitors. She wouldn't leave her palace."

Ruby didn't understand, but perhaps she never would. She hoped not. "She ... gave up?"

"No. Not really. She ... developed a secondary mutation. I am an empath, like Jeanie. Like Meg. We feel the pain others' feel. Tally feels every pain, every scratch, every bruise, every death within a certain radius of herself - the entire nation of Genosha."

Ruby almost couldn't comprehend that. Meg's powers were hard enough to understand.

"It's incapacitating for her," Rachel added, unnecessarily, Ruby thought.

Ruby only heard the slow _swish_ of the elevators pulling them up to the ground floor of the School and Darcy's tiny heartbeat up against her chest. She wondered at all the things Rachel "heard."

Ruby, lost in sympathy for her half-sister, finally said softly: "Rach, I think that would be a good enough excuse to give up."

" _It isn't_!" Rachel snapped, her eyes starting to glow the way they always did when she was so upset.

The elevator doors suddenly slid open with a gentle whisper. Rachel motioned for Ruby to step out; still stunned by her half-sister's sudden outburst (Rachel rarely lost her temper and was never cross with her little half-sisters) obeyed without question.

The pair were standing in the Jean Grey School's foyer. Tall windows let in the cold winter sunlight. There was a shining white piano (Meg had taken lessons to help her focus, but of course, Ruby could never sit still long enough to learn) sitting there in regal repose and a gigantic delicate mobile hanging in multi-colored pieces from the high ceiling. It shimmered iridescently in the cheerful sunshine. (Ruby and Meg had argued a million times over what shape the pieces made. Ruby always saw a whale in the twirling pieces.) There was also the statue of Jean Grey, the school's namesake, that Ruby had walked by a thousand times. The statue was dressed in the uniform Rachel Summers now wore, just as Rachel wore Jean Grey's codename, Phoenix.

At any other time of the year, the foyer would have been swarming with students cat-calling, laughing, arguing and jostling one another in a good-natured hubbub. Now, there were only echoes.

Ruby blinked in surprise. The elevator from the sub-levels took them _here_? She couldn't remember an elevator is the School foyer and she had lived here her entire life.

Rachel clapped a hand on her half-sister's shoulder. "Listen to me, Ruby," she said, pressing her forehead up against Ruby's in the same way Ruby would do to Meg when she really wanted to get her attention. "I've lost more loved ones than I care to count, but each day when I open my eyes, the pain of losing them is still as fresh as yesterday. But that is _never a reason_ to give up on life, your responsibilities or the people you love who survive. It's never a reason to become bitter, angry or resentful. It's an incentive - to do better, to make the world better for the people you cherish.

"Rube, I know where you're going and I know what you're doing," Rachel added, startling Ruby out of her reverie over what her half-sister had just said. "On the Astral Plane."

Ruby opened her mouth, but Rachel held up hand to silence her which was just as well since Ruby had no idea what to say - an excuse? An argument? A _lie_? God, no. Rachel would catch her in a lie before she even told it.

"I know how hard things have been here lately," Rachel said gently.

"Understatement of the year ..." Ruby muttered; she couldn't help it. The words came out before she could stop them. Oh well, Rachel could have read her thoughts even if they were unspoken.

But Rach just sighed. "But running away isn't going to change anything. You have responsibilities here in this reality."

"Nobody needs me," Ruby grumbled, refusing to look at Rachel.

"Look me in the eye and tell me that, Ruby Summers!" Rachel snapped in the stringent voice that led the X-Men. Ruby cringed, but Rachel went on. "Think about Meg for starters. She depends on you! And then Emma and Dad. Where would they be without you? Your Auntie Marie, Uncle Hank. Jeanie and all your cousins need you too."

Ruby felt an unfamiliar stinging sensation behind her visor. Tears. She hadn't cried really since she was a baby. Now they streamed down her face in shame and guilt. She had been running away. A cowardly act.

Her hands clenched into fists. Ruby Frost-Summers was no coward.

But then she remembered the soothing relief she felt on the Astral Plane, a place where she could be or do anything.

"B-But I was learning stuff there - important stuff! Stuff that could help us here," she argued.

"That's selfish, Ruby!" Rachel snapped, her eyes blazing. "Don't abandon your duties here and run off somewhere else and then say you're making a noble sacrifice!"

Ruby winced. She knew her half-sister was right.

She was sobbing: "B-But I w-was learning things!" she said stubbornly because she knew she was right about that. True, she had run away, but she had learned new skills in controlling her powers ... and discovering new ones.

Rachel gazed at her baby sister and Ruby knew the Phoenix's heart melted. Rachel couldn't stay angry at her little sisters for very long. She tenderly cupped the girl's tear-streaked face in her hands.

"Yes, you did. And I'm very proud. You're already learning to be a warrior - fearless, but wise. Remember that, little sis, and remember to use what you learn there to help the ones you love here," said Rachel.

Ruby smiled. Rachel's advice sounded very familiar for some reason. However, she couldn't concentrate enough to think why. She couldn't believe Rach had let her off so easily.

"A-Are you gonna tell Mamma and Daddy?" Ruby asked her.

"No," said Rachel seriously, but there was still a wry amusement about her expression, one red eyebrow cocked. "You are." There was a humorous tug at Rachel's lips. "Emma is worried sick you're running off doing drugs or having sex, you know."

Ruby's ruby-quartz skin grew a deeper shade of red the way it always did when she blushed. "Oh," she murmured. _Dammit_... she thought.

"Language," Rachel chided her, but her tone was light with humor.

Ruby laughed as she wiped her tears away. "You sound like Mamma."

Rachel chuckled. "I'm glad at least one of us does."

"H-How did you find out I was accessing the Astral Plane?" Ruby asked tentatively.

Rachel smiled. "Jean told me."

"Honestly, Rube, I've already filled my quota of laughing at you for the day," she giggled at her half-sister's look. "I take it you met her?"

"Yeah," Ruby said shyly. "She ..." How did she describe her meeting with Jean Grey? "She's a lot like you."

For some strange reason Rachel frowned and sighed. "Yes, a lot of people say that."

They were walking towards the School's front doors, Rachel's hand resting on Ruby's head. Ruby noticed with a touch of pride that she was almost as tall as her half-sister.

Suddenly, Ruby grabbed Rachel's wrists and gazed imploringly into her half-sister's eyes. "Rach, I think - well, Jean Grey thinks too - that something on the Astral Plane could help Jonathan! I-I saw him! He was there!"

Rachel looked sadly at Ruby. "Yes, I know. But it's impossible to retrieve him from there. Apocalypse has already corrupted him." Her voice sounded hollow as if all the tears had been spilled.

"I don't believe that!" Ruby said, stamping her foot.

"Ruby, for your own safety, you need to stay away from the Astral Plane for now. As long as Jonathan is there, the influence of Apocalypse could spread to you like a virus."

Ruby opened her mouth to protest, but Rachel reached into her breast pocket and pulled out a circular object with "X" emblazoned on its face.

Ruby instantly knew what it was - one of the team's communicators - and she was immediately struck mute. Only the X-Men wore them.

"Take it," Rachel urged her. "When you access it, the elevator to the sub-levels appears. Mattie's going to have a baby; I need a new recruit. You've learned skill on the Astral Plane. Let's see you put it to use, little sister. Let's see if you can follow your leader's orders - _my_ orders - now. Take responsibility for your power."

Rachel turned and walked out the front doors, her footsteps echoing faintly in the wake of a shocked and staring Ruby. A faint feeling of dampness jerked her back to reality. Mister Darcy had widdled in her overalls and a spreading puddle was forming on the shiny foyer floors.


	20. Snowball Free-For-All

**_Well, hey-o everyone! I want to thank Guest for the very insightful review. There is a character roster guide at the beginning of Chapter 6 if you want to check it out though I will be posting a new updated one - probably in the next chapter - with added characters._**

 ** _Thank you for the criticism and the praise (both are very appreciated). Please don't be shy to keep reviewing and adding your comments. Feedback means the world to me._**

 ** _These characters belong to Marvel._**

 ** _Please read, review and enjoy!_**

 ** _Cheers, Maria_**

 ** _Chapter XX: Snowball Free-For-All_**

"Hey! There's my Pretty Pony!" Rachel hailed her daughter as Jeanie walked out of the boathouse, carrying an armful of pony figurines that she and Meg hadn't played with since they were in preschool. "Pretty Plum and her friends have been keeping me company."

Jeanie walked right past her mother, scowling. She hadn't even made an attempt to communicate with Rachel since she'd placed psychic dampers in her mind. Rachel had just finished telling her team about Jonathan's disappearance - when his twin refused to even acknowledge her mother's existence, it pierced Rachel's heart to the very core.

Rachel would have felt better if her only daughter had cursed at her or spat on her.

"I-I know you feel like I've betrayed you ... and Jon," Rachel murmured, sadness weighing her limbs down like fatigue. "But -"

Ruby, trotting a couple steps behind her half-sister with her puppy Darcy riding in the bib of her overalls, paused to take in the exchange, her eyebrows lifting behind her black shades.

"But team come first!" Jeanie snarled, whirling on her mother, her thick braids of hair waving around her. When Jeanie tried to verbally communicate with others - with just a few exceptions like Laura and Scott - her sentences were awkward, halting and broken, like those of a small child learning to talk. "Jon don't matter. He _ONE_ boy, not all! Like me. Lose one, two, not whole family. Cut losses, Mama!"

Tears welled up in Rachel's eyes and spilled down her chin. "You don't believe this is killing me slowly?!" she demanded.

"What it matter what you feel?" Jeanie shouted, angry tears standing in her blue eyes as well. "Don't matter what anyone feel! Not to you! So long as team survive! You like Mama Laura!"

Jeanie's potent feelings of confusion, fear, anger and loneliness ran thru Rachel's mind in an emotional cocktail. After her meeting with the X-Men, Phoenix just felt too mentally exhausted to stand up against her daughter's tumultuous emotional storm. All Rachel could do was bow her head as Jeanie marched away.

Jeanie's reaction hurt her deeply. She knew her daughter was fiery and temperamental, but the fact their confrontation directly followed Rachel's lecture of Ruby and almost mirrored Rachel's own words to Cyclops concerning Jonathan when they first came here especially stung Phoenix.

Rachel pushed her fingers thru her tangled mat of hair. She hadn't been eating well or really caring for herself since their arrival here; she was so lost in grief and responsibility.

Ruby had watched everything, horrified. True, she had tagged after her half-sister to meet with the X-Men, but she was really too young to understand the responsibility that came with fulfilling Phoenix's role. Ruby had a very vague idea of the challenges and danger the X-Men faced, but it was a hazy abstract idea, far away in a land called "adulthood," a place she had never ventured before and didn't intend to anytime soon.

Rogue was coming out of the boathouse and had seen Rachel and Jeanie's argument as well. Ruby spied her auntie's fiercely disapproving frown.

"Did that girl just sass her Mama?" she demanded. Like Ruby's mother, Rogue had a reputation as a very strict parent. She wouldn't have tolerated any rude behavior from Oli or Ray. "She needs a whipping!"

Though Emma and Scott would punish their girls by taking away privileges, Ruby knew Jeanie's Mama Laura disciplined the twins harshly if they were disrespectful or disobedient.

Rachel only murmured sadly: "No, what she needs is her brother ..."

A lump of snow fell on Rachel's head. It immediately melted and steamed away into the air. When Rachel was agitated, as she was now, her very hair could turn to literal fire. Phoenix glanced up into an oak tree where Olivier LeBeau straddled a branch. Of course, Rachel couldn't sense Oli's psychic presence, so she was a prime target for his practical jokes. She did wonder, however, if Oli meant to push a snowbank on the Phoenix's head. The boy looked somewhat nervous. His eyes were constantly covered. Usually, no one could get a clear read on his emotions, so the fact he was showing any at all probably meant he was very scared, Rachel guessed.

"I-It's snowing, Miz Rachel," he peeped.

Rachel, sad and weary, gazed up at her little cousin hanging on tight to the tree limb like she couldn't just fly up there and burn him up if she wanted to.

She had no idea what to do anymore. She had shed so many tears - so she laughed.

Oli, who actually appeared relieved that he might not die today, grinned with all his roguish charm.

"Yay-Hey, snowball fight, on!" Olivier cried. "Prepare to die, Summers!"

"In your dreams, LeBeau!" Rachel replied.

"Shots fired!" Rogue said, joining in, grinning at Rachel as she flew past her niece. Rachel knew Marie probably wasn't very interested in an actual snowball fight, but was doing her part to help cheer up Phoenix. Also, Rogue being Rogue, she could not resist a brawl of any kind.

This is the way it was almost every Winter Break, as soon as there was a big snowfall, the family would pick sides in a snowball free-for-all. If Rachel knew this family she so loved and cherished they would all be out here soon slinging snow with their various powers.

"Traitor!" Olivier shouted at his mama who had taken sides with Rachel. "You are a disgrace to the LeBeau name!"

Rogue slammed into the tree her son was perched in, almost uprooting it, and sent Oli tumbling to the snow-covered ground. A second later, an venerable avalanche buried the boy.

"Chill out, boy," Rogue crowed at her youngest child.

Ray was trotting around the side of the boathouse, gnawing on a turkey leg. When she spotted the fight gearing up before her eyes, she glanced around nervously, as if looking for a way out. Oli's head popped out of the snow. He spied his big sister and called on her assistance. "Ray-Ray, ovah here!"

Ray put the whole turkey leg in her mouth, soared into the air and spat out the entire bone. It landed in Mister Darcy's jaws.

"Gross!" Ruby laughed, eying Ray enviously.

If only she could fly ...

But the youngest Summers was certainly not useless in a fight.

Ray swooped down and began rolling up the world's biggest snowball. When it was the size of a minivan, it was suddenly incinerated by a very familiar optic blast, leaving Ray-Ray drenched and Ruby giggling. She laughed so hard, she fell down, kicking and scuffing up snow with her boots. Of course, her bio-organic ruby quartz skin kept her from getting cold. Darcy jumped out of her overalls and romped around, yipping and biting at the snowflakes falling from the sky.

"This is unfair!" Oli snarled. "Three against two! And ya'll got Rach!"

It was true. Rachel had a reputation as Snowball Ninja. Rogue and Ray were heavy-hitters, but Rachel's telekinesis could send a barrage of dozens of snowballs straight towards her target - namely Oli LeBeau - and roll them up deadly and hard as fast as she could think it.

And Ruby wasn't the only Summers to inherit her father's precise aim.

Olivier dove for cover behind the now-toppled tree Rogue had felled with a mighty, " _Timberrrr_!"

 _Think your way around the problem_ , he told himself.

Rachel couldn't track him psychically. He was a Ninja as well. And he had the agility and cunning of a cat. He dodged, leaped and tumbled from tree trunk to trunk in the Summers front yard as Rachel's telekinetically-aimed snowballs pelted the bark, splintering some.

For all her good-naturedness, Phoenix was a fearsome warrior. There was a reason she was field leader of the X-Men. Even in a snowball fight, she played for keeps.

That was her strength; well, maybe it was time for Oli E. LeBeau to play to his strengths as well.

Oli spotted Jeanie carrying an armful of horse figurines towards the School. She looked so fetching with her long red hair bouncing with every step she took. She looked determined. Suddenly, a stray snowball from Rachel's telekinetic assault hit her daughter in the chest. Pretty Ponies scattered everywhere.

"Uh-oh," Rogue laughed nervously. "Friendly fire."

Everyone paused as Jeanie's nostrils dilated with rage. Here blue eyes dilated too. Then all the snow covering the branches of the surrounding trees levitated into the air and rolled themselves into go-cart-size snowballs. The psychic dampers Rach had placed in her daughter's mind had not hindered her telekinesis at all.

Rachel and Rogue shrieked with laughter as Ruby struggled to shoot Jeanie's gigantic snowballs out of the sky as they hurdled towards them. Ruby's aim was true; she was shooting down snowballs almost as fast as Jeanie could telekinetically make them.

Jeanie, her face as red as her hair now, doubled-down on her telekinetic snowball storm. Ruby was whirling and dancing, shooting optic beams in every direction, but Jeanie was just too fast.

Suddenly, a snowball the size of the boathouse living room was sailing thru the air towards Ruby. But she hadn't been able to recover from an spectacular optic-shot she had just made.

As the snow-boulder bore down on her, it suddenly froze, levitating in the air inches above Ruby's head.

"Whoa!" she breathed.

Rogue, who was using the uprooted tree to hit Ray's boulder-sized snowballs like a baseball bat as Rachel was trying to pelt Olivier out of cover, paused to call out: "Nice one, Rach!"

"Um, that wasn't me ..." Rachel murmured in reply. Had _Jeanie_ stopped her assault? The girl was sweet, but she could be a formidable warrior if pushed to be. And she'd certainly never gone easy on her rowdy cousins during a fun scrap.

Rachel's eyes fell on her little half-sister, Ruby, who looked especially pleased with herself ...

 ** _###_**

It was at that moment at the School, Meg was stumbling sleepily downstairs from Beast's lab towards the foyer entrance, supported by Uncle Hank. Even as the girl leaned on his broad furry shoulder she protested: "I can walk by myself, Uncle Hank."

"I want to keep both eyes on you, Miss Summers, for the time being," Hank explained with the same long-suffering patience he forever employed with his nieces.

Megan had no idea what all the fuss was about -

Well, no, she did. She had caused _another_ telepathic storm. Also, Jeanie and Jonathan were on the Astral Plane; Jonathan was possessed by Apocalypse. And little Meggie Summers had drawn on the unlimited psychic energy of the Plane to fuel a telepathic attack the likes of which she had never even heard of, let alone done, before.

So, OK, maybe Hank had reason to be a _little_ worried, but, dammit, the man was fussing after her like a mama hen. Yes, she had been in-and-out (of _this_ reality, at any rate) for the past 72 hours and Uncle Hank had made her lie down in the med lab for the past eight hours with only her crochet hook for company. Meg's mother had come in to hover and worry, but - after only a brief conversation - Beast had shooed her out. Beast's lab was his domain and no one, not even the White Queen, questioned him inside of it.

Now, Megan was ready to climb the walls. She was better at sitting still than Ruby, but this was ridiculous! She was virtually a warrior-princess on the Astral Plane; why did Beast have to treat her like a dumb kid _here,_ forcing her to lay around stitching hats and scarves? OK, she would have actually _liked_ that activity under normal circumstances, but now there was multi-dimensional trouble brewing and, for God's sake, during the past eight hours she'd already made scarves for the entire family (including her cousins), socks for her dad, chullo hats for Jeanie and Ray and a very fetching muffler for her mom.

Plus, if her mom had come to get her, it meant Emma Frost was ready for Megan to hone those skills she discovered on the Astral Plane, not sit around brooding about them while carding alpaca fleece! The White Queen was a "truth-positive" parent ... Meg had overhead Olivier say that and he had picked it up from Rogue. Megan was a smart girl, but she hadn't been around to note the condescending tone Rogue had used in describing the White Queen. Meg just heard the words "truth-positive" come innocently out of Oli's mouth and assumed that must be a compliment for the way Emma wanted her kids prepped and ready for whatever the world (or alternate worlds in this case) threw at them.

Well, that's what Meg guessed; and Meg was a pretty good guesser.

Olivier came dashing in the front doors in a manner that Emma would definitely have disapproved of with his sister Ray hot on his heels. Both of them were covered from head to toe in powdery snow. As Ray ran thru the front door, it immediately shattered into a million sparkling bits.

"It's _snowing_!" Oli shouted, making everything, including Hank's eardrums, it seemed, shudder. "It just started, but its sticking!" the boy continued, dancing from foot to foot. Ray held onto her brother's shirt-tail as if she were afraid he might float away from sheer happiness. "There might be four feet of snow by tonight, Mama says!"

As awful and confused as she felt about everything, Meg giggled at his enthusiasm. Oli constantly tried to play it cool, but he was really just a big kid at heart. And a big snow was something young LeBeau just couldn't be nonchalant about.

"Mama and Rachel are _killing_ us, Meggie!" Olivier yelped, running midway up the stairs and grasping her hands. The snow was melting off his clothes in slushy clumps and making puddles everywhere he walked. "Ruby too. Ya gotta come help us!"

Meg didn't, having just encountered an Apocalypse-possessed Jonathan and realized her full capabilities on the Astral Plane, really know how to answer her friend.

 _He's acting like a little kid_ , Meg thought humorously, but also a bit contemptuously. _Because he_ is _a little kid_. A frightening thought hit her - thinking these terrifying confusing new thoughts - not just about the Astral Plane and Jonathan, but about growing up and leaving her childhood behind - was _she_ a kid even more? Could she return to her carefree days as a child, throwing snowballs at her friends?

Oli glanced imploringly at Hank and Meg turned her own pleading eyes up at Beast. All the kids had a conspiracy going with their Uncle Hank: If they dotted every "i" and crossed every "t" with him, he wouldn't rat them out to their parents about their own exploits the grownups wouldn't approve of.

Perhaps her Uncle Hank was a bit of a big kid himself, Meg thought with a smile.

Beast threw up his hands in dramatic surrender. "As if I could stop you!" he exclaimed though Meg knew he could with a mere glance if he wanted. "Get along with you!" he roared ferociously though the children laughed because they knew Hank was only kidding around. "Besides, Miss Summers here has already produced a winter's-worth of clothing for the entire family as well as realized her full potential as a telepathic warrioress in an alternate dimension; I would say she deserves a bit of a respite," he stated. "If your venerable mother disapproves I will cheerfully tell her to go to hell!"

Meg laughed, but also winced a little. No one she knew of had ever demanded her mother go to "H-E-L-L," but if anyone ever would, it would be Uncle Hank. It wasn't that he was stupid by any means; he was just too old to _care_.

"Les' go!" Oli said, tugging at Megan's arm.

Meg spared a glance for Uncle Hank who made no move to follow the children out (of what remained of) the front doors. He noticed her puzzled expression and grinned toothily at his niece.

"Throw a snowball for me, warrioress!" he called to Meg.

"You aren't comin?" Olivier asked, his voice low in astonishment.

"I am quite tired, young Master LeBeau," Beast explained patiently.

Megan was equally shocked by Beast's behavior. Beast had not missed a snowball-fight, mud-war, fall-leaf-jump, Easter-egg-roll or whatever else fun the children cooked up that Megan could remember. The fact that he was "tired" was hardly an excuse. Meg had seen her Uncle Hank pull all-nighters (and then consecutive all-day'ers) and still have bountiful energy to engage in boisterous play with his nieces and nephews.

Like her dad, however, Beast had lived around telepaths so long his thoughts were not apparent to Meg. But she sensed that strange feeling of urgency about Beast that had become familiar to her since Jonathan ... left.

And that Hank was hiding something, but a rock could have sensed that, she thought, it was so obvious.

The big blue man curled up at the enormous white piano in the School foyer and eloquently played the opening bars to Vivaldi's "Spring."

 _How ironic_ ... Meg thought and grinned as snowflakes and snowballs flew outside.

This was one of Uncle Hank's jokes, she mused. It had to be ... She turned her head to study Beast sitting hunched over the piano. The piano was a baby-grand and Meg remembered when she was four-years-old barely being able to reach the keys as Hank taught her to play. Even now, her toes just brushed the floor when she sat on the stool. Beast hunkered over the instrument like a funny circus clown in an undersized car.

There was something there about Hank Meg couldn't see, like a shadow she spied in the corner of her peripheral vision, but when she turned to look at it full-on, it vanished.

Now, however, Olivier was dragging her out into the blindingly white outdoors where soft fluffy snow was already one-and-a-half feet deep and Meg sank deliciously into the drifts up to her shins.

She and Oli floundered joyfully thru the snow towards the Summers' front yard and the happy shouts of their family engaged in full-on snowball warfare.

 _ **###**_

Oli and Meg were hiding behind one of the trees his Mama hadn't felled yet. By the time this fight was over, Oli wondered if the Summers' front yard would be laid bare.

"I have an idea!" he murmured to Meggie. It was a devious one, but wasn't Uncle Scott always teaching them to play for keeps? Uncle Scott was strict, but Oli secretly admired Meg's clever father who was an ace tactician from his longtime tenure as leader of the X-Men.

Oli certainly wasn't afraid of him.

 _Absolutely not_. No, he wasn't one bit.

Rogue and Ray-Ray were brawlers; they could punch thru any obstacle. Oli had different methods. It was true ... he was a sly fox. Even his two-toned spiky hair reminded his friends of the contrasting colors of the sneaky fox. Meg was always teasing him about it.

He looked at his pretty friend. How beautiful she was! She had certainly grown up, Oli thought, just like little Jeanie - if a bit on the short side compared to pretty Miss Richards. And he wasn't the only one to notice Meg. What was that nonsense Ray had said about Howard Najeer? Oli outright refused to believe a word of that rubbish. That boy had as much personality as a lump of clay. A nice girl like Meggie had no time for boys like Najeer.

But Meg's eyes were still wide, innocent and blue. No secrets there. Miss Meggie could go into anyone's mind (except his own, of course) if she really wanted, but the girl would be shocked for Oli even suggesting that.

He grinned devilishly when he imagined what beautiful Meg Summers would think of his plan. Then his grin widened when he thought how thankful he was Meg couldn't see his thoughts - because more than a few of them included her.

Oli peeked out from around the tree. A snowball the size of a bear hammered into the telekinetic shield Jeanie had erected around their hideout. Jeanie had sheltered Oli and Meg from the School to the front yard grove where the kids were making their stand. Even with Ray-Ray on their side, they were on the defense.

Rogue and Rachel were on the same team and they were a force to be reckoned with.

Oli needed something big to turn the tables ...

And he wanted to show off to Jeanie _and_ Meg at the same time.

Behind his dark glasses, Oli's sharp eyes spotted Mrs. Duck sailing like a proud little ship across the lake with her early brood of ducklings swimming in her wake.

 _Ah-hah_ ...

Oli reached into the long duster jacket he wore into just one of its many pockets and pulled out ...

A _bagel_!

Olivier tossed the bagel out into the middle of the battlefield like a hand grenade.

Mrs. Duck spied the pastry at the exact same moment Ruby's little puppy Darcy did. Duck and her brood waddled and Darcy raced, quacking and barking respectively, towards the bagel.

" _Ducks_!" Oli shouted.

If Oli had called out "duck!" everyone would have run for cover. Oli had used the plural, however. And he knew Ruby and Ray would come running (or flying in his sister's case).

Rogue and Rachel were warriors; they were trained to tune out distractions during the chaos of battle. But Ruby and Ray for all their super-powers were just kids.

And no animal, from the smallest duckling up, would be harmed on the girls' watch.

Ray, in her haste to usher the duckies to safety, dropped what Oli was sure was the world's biggest snowball. The snowball, half the size of the boathouse, plummeted towards the ground and Darcy. Ruby tore off her shades and blasted the snow-boulder with the full power of her concussive-force beams to save her puppy.

Ray swooped down to shelter Mrs. Duck and her babies, screeching to a halt between Rogue and Jeanie who were about to collide in battle. The girls dog-piled into Rogue as Mrs. Duck scolded them all in high-pitched quacks.

 _Weeeeell, now, this is going well_ ... Olivier thought smugly. Young LeBeau was never happier than when he was making a mess. If only Jon were here ...

Oli felt that severe sharpness in his chest. He had to lash out, show-off, draw attention to himself to ease it away for awhile.

Oh, Meg was watching him now with those dreamboat eyes of hers. Of course, Jeanie couldn't see him because she was tangled up with his Mama and Ray-Ray. But Meg's eyes were so wide he could see himself in them. He gave her his most dazzling smile.

Wait, why were her eyes gazing out above his head and them tracking down? What had happened to that shed-sized snowball Ray had dropped and Ruby had blasted?

Suddenly, Rachel snatched Oli up off the ground. Seconds later, Ray's snowball splattered on the ground where he had been standing moments ago.

"T'anks for the save, Miz Rachel," he said. Truthfully, his heart was pounding, but he wasn't about to sound winded or ruffled in any way - especially around such a pretty redhead. Besides, it wasn't like he wasn't _used_ to these sorts of catastrophes and close-calls living with his sister.

Rach glanced at her little cousin and rolled her eyes in disgust.

"That was a sneaky trick," she chided him.

"Got the fighting to stop," Oli pointed out.

Ray and Jeanie lay incapacitated in the snow; Rogue had both in a headlock and all were rolling around on the ground, helpless with laughter. There would be no more fighting today.

Rachel tried to look stern, but a smile seemed to crack the glare in her eyes. Following in her father's footsteps, she was a strict co-leader of the X-Men; but she was a big pushover with her little cousins. "Nice maneuver, LeBeau. Unorthodox, but well done. Any more tricks up your sleeve?"

"Jus' this," he said mischievously and brazenly kissed beautiful Phoenix on the cheek.

It was true, he called her "cousin" as he did all the X-Men's kids, but it's not like she was actually _related_ to Olivier - neither were Jeanie or Meg.

The look of shock and outrage on Rachel's beautiful face made Oli laugh with pleasure. She dumped him in the snow. She was only about twenty feet up and when he hit the deep snow it was like landing in a pillow.

Oli's head popped out of the snowdrift, but he couldn't move the rest of his body. He was a living snowman.

"Rach! Hey, Phoenix! _Summers_!" he yelled after Rachel but to no avail.

He was trapped.

Meg and Jeanie approached. Oh, no. They had those sly smiles on like when they were little and would dress him in baby-doll clothes.

"Lookit, Jeanie, a snowman! But without a proper cap or a scarf," Meg said. "He'll catch his death of cold if he isn't bundled up!"

Oli knew Jeanie couldn't project any images into Megan's mind now due to the psychic dampers her mama had placed in her head. She couldn't have to him anyway, but the girl's smirk in Meg's direction said everything - the girls would have their revenge on Oli for causing all this trouble in the first place.

In no time at all, Meg and Jeanie had decked out Olivier Etienne in two scarves, a fetching shawl and two chullo hats. He could only hunker down miserably and curse their family names.

"He is _beautiful_! An enchanted prince like in a story!" Meggie gushed and the girls giggled together like only best friends can.

Oli changed tactics like a feather in the wind. "Kiss me and see if I am a prince under a spell," he said suavely.

"I know you aren't," Meg sassed back, smirking. "But I will _give_ you a kiss Mister LeBeau. No prince required."

Oli perked up at that. Shy little Meggie. He certainly hadn't expected that ... though he'd daydreamed about it often enough. He licked his lips in anticipation and closed his eyes.

"Pucker up, buttercup," Meg ordered him smoothly.

Oli did so eagerly. Of course, he had kissed many girls back home and liked them all. But pretty Meggie never had kissed anyone he was aware of - unless it was that jackass Najeer which set Oli's hot LeBeau blood boiling.

His lips touched cool smooth plastic. Oli's eyes popped open to see the South-end of a North-bound Pretty Plum pony figurine. Meg and Jeanie erupted into laughter.

"A horse's ass!" Meg hiccuped, wiping her eyes. "You really liked it LeBeau, I think. Let's leave Pretty Plum and her pals here just in case you want more kisses, Oli."

They arranged Pretty Plum, Jellybean Sundae, Magenta Flame and even stupid Badger Tail all around the hopelessly snowbound Oli.

The girls strolled away from a shouting and angry Oli, hugging each other for support to keep collapsing from laughter.

Jeanie thought: _Grandpa Scott was right. These ponies are important_. She hadn't seen Meg this happy and carefree since Jeanie arrived here ...

But they hadn't helped Jeanie. She studied her best friend who was smiling in the weak winter sunlight beginning to break out of the grey clouds. It just made it that much harder when Jeanie remembered what she had to tell Meg ...

 _ **###**_

Rachel surveyed the scene below. The kids were happy, laughing and having a blast. Even Jeanie. Rach hadn't even seen her precious daughter smile since coming here. The literal fire in the beautiful telepath's veins wasn't the thing warming Rachel to her very fingertips right now in this freezing weather.

Rogue was right - the pain of losing Jon wasn't getting easier (it was harder, in fact, knowing he wasn't here to partake in the fun), but life continued ... there were other people to care for. Namely, Jeanie and her little cousins.

They deserved the best life Rachel and the other adults could give them ... the one Rachel never got.

She heard Rogue chuckling behind her. She turned to see her auntie hovering in the air a few feet from Rachel, her long auburn hair waving in the wind like a flag, its long silver streak flashing in the sun.

"I used to do that to Oli's daddy," Marie laughed. "Dump him in the biggest body of water I could find when he got too fresh."

"I remember," said Rachel, grinning in reply. "But as I recall you never dropped Uncle Remy on anything hard enough to really hurt him."

"Hmm," Rogue said, frowning at Rachel's teasing tone. "I was tryin' to knock some sense into that hard head of his without killin' him. Guess that was a bust."

"Seems to have about as much affect on his son," Rachel replied, narrowing her eyes at Rogue's youngest child who was outrageously flirting with Jeanie, the Phoenix's daughter.

Rachel remembered her soothing words of reassurance to Laura over their teenage daughter's courtship habits and she was suddenly glad she was seeing this and not Lady Wolverine. Laura had none of the telepathic wiles Rachel possessed (which Oli was immune to) nor would she warn the boy away from Jeanie with words the way Scott would. Laura would attack first and Oli was by no means immune to good old-fashioned adamantium claws.

Oli's behavior made Rachel's fists clench and her heart-rate elevate as it was. Here Olivier had just kissed Rachel and now he was flirting with her girl! Rachel suspected the little cad would have taken _two_ kisses from her if she hadn't dumped him.

"That boy gets more like his daddy every day," Rogue said, shrugging and smiling in a _c'est la vie_ kind of way.

For all Rogue's blusterous nature, Rach knew Oli had his Mama wrapped around his little finger. But Rogue wasn't blind - or stupid. The powerful woman had longed for an alliance between the Summers and the LeBeau's since the children had been born - and lots of super-powered grand-babies. Rachel knew her stepmother Emma was highly self-conscious of becoming a grandma; Rogue longed for it and was more than a bit jealous Emma had beat her to grandmother-hood. Emma took great pains to hide her white hairs and wrinkles; Marie wore them proudly.

"I'm proud to have lived this long," Rogue would boast. "'Sides I got white hair mixed in on my head already without age puttin' it there!" she would jokingly add. "'Bout time I became a gran'mama."

And Rogue longed for lots and lots of Summers-LeBeau grandchildren with the extreme powers of both families. Her own little superhero army.

Most everyone assumed that would eventually come between Oli and Meg because they were such great friends. But Rachel knew Rogue wouldn't say no to a grandchild with a healthy dash of Richards sprinkled in its DNA.

Right now, Rogue was smiling indulgently down at her young son as he wooed little Jeanie Richards, much to Rachel's chagrin.

"Hmph, well, that's what I get havin' a baby with Remy LeBeau," Rogue stated, but she was grinning.

Rachel knew this was true. Oli LeBeau couldn't help flirting any more than Jeanie and Jonathan could resist the siren call of alternate dimensions, Rachel thought sadly. It was simply in their genes, inherited from their respective fathers, and suppressing that would be cruel.

Rachel sighed: "Marie ... am I a good mom?"

Rogue gazed strangely at her niece. "You protect your babies, don'tcha? You cut them off from places that'll hurt them even if they hate you and it breaks your heart, right?"

Rachel felt the tears burning the back of her eyes. She nodded, afraid her voice would break if she spoke.

Rogue took her niece in her arms. For a woman who could level buildings with a snap of her fingers, Marie could be extremely gentle when she wanted to be.

"Then ya doin' ya best, baby," she soothed Rachel, massaging her back. "Even if you feel it ain't enough. Even if it ain't. I know you'll try ya damnedest cause it's what we Mama's do. Even when we _know_ we can't make the cut. Life is cruel and our babies get caught up in that cruelty and there ain't a damn thing we can do about it, but that don't mean we Mama's give up on 'em."

Rachel sighed and closed her eyes blissfully, appreciating both Rogue's forthright advice and her hugs - even if that's all Marie could offer in this situation.

"I wish Kitty were here," Rachel murmured. "She always knew what to do."

Rogue snorted. "Kitty always _told_ people what to do," she corrected her niece. "Doesn't mean she had all the answers, the little bossy-boots."

Rachel smiled. She dearly missed Kitty Pryde, her beloved auntie, and her tough attitude which was somehow more no-nonsense, straightforward and frankly frightening than Rogue's - despite Kitty being exactly five-foot-three. Kitty was raising two children of her own; Rach longed to meet them.

"Kitty could walk thru walls and penetrate people's armor - emotional or otherwise - no matter how tough a front they put up," Rachel said.

"Guess that's why she was such great friends with us," Rogue stated with a wistful smile. Rachel knew her auntie missed Kitty more than even her. Rogue had a massive soft-spot for her old roommate and best pal.

"I wonder if she could help Jeanie ... or Jonathan," Rachel continued thoughtfully. Then she gazed seriously at Rogue. "Because I can't," she said flatly. "And it's killing me. Furthermore, it's killing _Jeanie_ \- literally. She must pass thru dimensions in order to survive, Marie. And the psychic dampers I placed in her mind - that I _had_ to place in her mind ..." Rachel trailed off miserably. "Jeanie can't express herself in a way that will let her survive - thrive! She's lost her brother. That's unfair enough. This is just cruel!" Phoenix gazed down and her hot tears sprinkled the snow. "And _I'm_ the one doing it to her."

"Cause you _have_ too, sugah," Rogue crooned.

"Emma wants to go into the Astral Plane and purge Jon's mind of Apocalypse, but she can't. _I_ won't let her. Dad doesn't want her to, but she doesn't have to listen to him. _I_ will stop her by force if I have to," Rachel said to Rogue whose green eyes had widened.

"Emma's pregnant," Rachel explained.

As miserable as she was, she couldn't help but indulge in a wicked delight at delivering the news. Rogue's expression was worth it, but Rachel also smiled when she thought how enraged Emma would be that she told.

Rogue knew her niece too well; she returned Rach's sly smile and ruffled her fiery curls in an affectionate way. "An' you gonna be a big sis again," Rogue said with a chuckle.

Rogue loved babies ... super-powered babies with almost incomprehensible abilities.

Rogue shook her head and murmured softly: "I wondered why you and Em' didn't go after ya boy ... now ah know. Ya as protective of all the young 'uns as you are ya own.

"But you think Kitty might be able to help Jon?" Rogue asked.

Rachel sighed, her shoulders sagging. "I'm out of options, Marie. I can't go. Neither can Emma or Jeanie or Meg ... or Ruby."

" _Ruby_?" said Rogue, arching an eyebrow.

"Um, well, y'know if she could. I can't get the little ones involved - any of the little ones," Rachel explained quickly, but Rogue's suspicious expression remained. "Apocalypse could infect any of them if they're in contact with Jonathan, but Kitty ..."

"Kitty Pryde could walk thru dreams if she got a notion to," Rogue said. "I never saw a barrier that gal couldn't get thru."

"And in her intangible form Kitty is immune to any threat," Rachel said. "Maybe even Apocalypse."

"Sounds like ya Daddy's thinkin'," Rogue said, beaming with pride at her niece.

"Well, it was his idea," Rachel said, somewhat shyly.

Rogue looked at Rachel and then grabbed her into another bear-hug. "Listen, baby, ya Daddy didn't do right by you when you was little, but, in his way, he still loves you." Rogue gently stroked Rachel's hair as she gazed into her blue eyes. "An' Jonathan. You know that right?"

"I might've had my doubts. Grief made me forget maybe," Rachel replied. "But when he suggested finding Kitty I knew for sure."

Rogue smiled at her little niece. "Now we jus' gotta find the old gal."

Rachel hadn't seen Kitty in years - not since the X-Men fought Apocalypse ... and Iceman, the father of Kitty's children, had died.

But Rachel laughed because she hadn't felt this optimistic in weeks.

"Well, I don't want to be around when you call Kitty 'old gal,'" she joked and Rogue pulled her into another noogie.


	21. Meet Me On the Astral Plane

**_Okie! Hello, everyone. Firstly, thanks to Guest for the amazing words of encouragement! Just the morale boost I needed. Gracias! I do indeed love these characters and I do hope I am representing them well._**

 ** _Next, here is the character guide as promised, characters that have made an appearance so far. I will update this character guide as the story progresses._**

 ** _Have fun and if you read, PLEASE REVIEW! Feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!_**

 ** _Children/Grandchildren of the X-Men:_**

 ** _*Megan Katherine Summers - daughter of Cyclops and Emma Frost_**

 ** _*Ruby Grace Summers - daughter of Cyclops and Emma Frost_**

 ** _* Peregrine Rebecca Worthington - granddaughter of Angel and Psylocke_**

 ** _* Griffin Cassidy Worthington - grandson of Angel and Psylocke_**

 ** _* Sparrowhawk Warren Worthington - grandson of Angel and Psylocke_**

 ** _* Tom Warren Worthington IV - son of Angel and Psylocke_**

 ** _* Irene Theresa Cassidy Worthington - daughter of Banshee and Moira MacTaggert_**

 ** _* Dream Jeanie Richards - daughter of Rachel Summers (Phoenix) and Franklin Richards_**

 ** _* Jonathan Reed Richards - son of Rachel Summers (Phoenix) and Franklin Richards_**

 ** _* Raven "Ray" LeBeau - daughter of Rogue and Gambit_**

 ** _* Olivier "Oli" Etienne LeBeau - son of Rogue and Gambit_**

 ** _* Talia Josephine Wagner - daughter of Nightcrawler and the Scarlet Witch_**

 ** _* Nightshade Amanda Wagner - daughter of Nightcrawler and Amanda Sefton_**

 ** _* Oliza Jimaine Wagner - daughter of Nightcrawler and Amanda Sefton_**

 ** _* Stefan/Sophie Wagner - son/daughter of Nightcrawler and Amanda Sefton_**

 ** _* Simon Alvers - son of Avalanche_**

 ** _* Hecktor Alvers - son of Avalanche_**

 ** _* Mattie Jones - daughter of Firestar_**

 ** _* Merle Szardos - granddaughter of Nightcrawler_**

 ** _* Kymri Szardos - granddaughter of Nightcrawler_**

 _ **Chapter XXI: Meet Me on the Astral Plane**_

Emma had made a promise. Not that that mattered, she thought cynically. How many promises had she broken in her lifetime? Well, how many didn't really matter compared to who she had broken them to and for. Yes, it was unfair, but the world was unfair. No one knew that better than the White Queen.

She knew where Jonathan was – on the Astral Plane. There were two problems, however. The first being Emma didn't have much experience on or about the Astral Plane. And like many things she didn't naturally excel at (especially something that seemed to come so easily to most telepaths), Emma Frost was very self-conscious about that. Rachel, for example, had been accessing the Plane since she was a small child. Emma, however, had visited the Astral Plane only once before and then under dire circumstances – when her loved ones were in mortal danger. Well, she mused with a humorless smirk, now might be a good time to consider a revisit to the alternate dimension.

The second problem was Jon himself. Scott believed his grandson had been infected by Apocalypse and Emma agreed. Rachel, the poor girl, had argued ferociously with her father over the matter; father and daughter had almost come to blows over it. Emma couldn't really fault Rachel. Emma had lost so many children under her care, one her own biological son. She couldn't really blame a woman for fighting to save her child.

Now, however, Phoenix seemed to have accepted her son was gone. Emma remembered that feeling well – that miserable sense of loss that comes over a mother when she truly understands her child will never again see life. It was a wound that didn't ever truly heal and reopened at every memory of the dead child. But life still cruelly continued. It didn't even pause to mourn a life lost so early and, eventually, even a grieving mother knew there were other children to care for and work to be done.

So why had Emma so recklessly promised Jeanie that her twin brother could be saved? Well, it wasn't reckless, because Emma had a possible solution – a plan. Those possessed by the evil being Apocalypse could be purged of his influence. Emma had seen it done before. In fact, she had helped to do it. Could she do it again to save Jonathan Richards?

The beautiful telepath was pacing in the upstairs boathouse bedroom she shared with Scott. It gave her a commanding view of the snow-covered front yard and the sparkling lake beyond. The snowflakes were coming down thick now, sticking to every surface as the temperature dropped steadily spreading a pretty white blanket over everything, transforming the dull and mundane into something marvelous and new.

She thought of Jon and shuddered.

Not that the pristine snowfall stood much of a chance, Emma mused with a smile. Most of the children, even little Jeanie, were out in the front yard – shrieking, screaming, shouting and hurling snowballs in all directions. Emma noticed Rogue and Rachel playing just as enthusiastically with the kids. She winced when Rogue uprooted a tree, an oak well into its second century, to bat away a van-sized snowball Ray threw her way. Ray's snow-boulder flew into the lake, causing a mini-tidal-wave that temporarily submerged the front yard.

There were times Emma wondered how Rogue's children had survived to adolescence – or how everyone they knew had survived the boisterous LeBeau family.

Emma's ice-blue eyes widened slightly as she sensed and then saw her little Megan trotting out to the battlefield from the direction of the School campus. It was the first time Emma had seen her eldest daughter out of bed in the past 72 hours. The White Queen had strongly sensed her daughter's agitation at being cooped up in Beast's med lab for the last three days and Emma had been 'round to inspect her girl – before that plagued Dr. McCoy chased her out.

Now, the child was out playing in the snow like she hadn't caused two psychic storms in three days, something no other person Emma knew of had done before.

Hank, drat the man, had an annoying habit allowing the kids to do whatever they pleased so long as they followed his word to the letter – their parents' orders be damned. Emma shook her head. Meg could siphon energy off the Astral Plane and emit enormous psionic bursts. That was a power that demanded honing before Meg could harm anyone or herself.

Emma felt the frantic pull at her heart she always experienced when she thought about her daughters – especially Megan. Her little psychic was growing more powerful by the day. Meg should be training, not frolicking in the snow with her friends.

She was about to send a telepathic command to Meg when Emma noticed Jeanie and Megan patting snow around Olivier LeBeau to root him to the ground, his head sticking out of the top of the gigantic snowball the girls had made as he struggled and shouted uselessly at them. As awful as circumstances were, Emma just had to chuckle aloud at the kids' antics.

OK, a few minutes play in the snow couldn't hurt Meg. After all, play was a luxury Emma could scarcely afford when she was a girl and didn't parents aspire to give their children the things they couldn't have?

The children's play seemed innocent, but Emma noticed how attentively Oli watched Jeanie, following her every move and hanging on her every action. Jeanie flounced around the trapped boy. Emma could never read Oli's thoughts, but she didn't have to it this case, she thought, rolling her eyes. The boy was flirting outrageously with the pretty redhead. Meg, meanwhile, was trying her best to ignore their exchange, but Emma could sense her daughter's jealousy and disappointment.

Emma knew well Olivier's flirtatious ways and exploits. (Rogue and Ray-Ray, who spoiled him terribly, were only too eager to brag about the male in their life.) But she also was aware of her little daughter's fondness for the boy who Meg had been as close to as Jeanie since they were babies. Emma didn't really like Oli and she certainly didn't trust him. But, secretly, she had nursed the hope in her heart that her little Meggie would find love with this boy she so adored.

Everyone else in the family – Rogue first and foremost, who valued power above all else, and longed for an alliance between the powerful LeBeau and Summers tribes – paired them together as future mates. The grownups also secretly hoped Meg's serious grounded nature would help reign in wild young LeBeau.

Now with his eye, which Emma nor anybody else could see, on pretty Jeanie, Emma's hopes wavered and she felt crushed for poor Megan – not because Olivier might not fit into the family scheme to get him and Meg together, but because he was causing his best little girl-friend such terrible emotional pain. Emma could feel it potently and the protective beast inside her roared.

 _If I could get in that boy's head for two minutes_ … Emma thought, her "Mama Bear" side roused and angry. _I'd made the little cad's worst nightmares come true!_

The White Queen's eyes narrowed at her step-granddaughter, however, and Emma suddenly gasped as a realization hit her. She couldn't get a mental reading on Jeanie! That had never happened before. Emma closed her eyes to concentrate. Yes, she could sense the adults and children's mental signatures (with the obvious exception of Oli) like little bright lights inside her mind.

Her instincts immediately put the White Queen on guard. Something was very wrong here … Well, she thought wearily, something _else_ was wrong.

"You need to get in on the action!" Cyclops called cheerfully as he entered their bedroom. He had thoughtfully removed his boots on the enclosed back porch, but his hair was wet and as tousled as ever from the snowball fight. "Rachel and Rogue have teamed up with Ruby. But Ray's on our side. Damn, that girl can throw _almost_ as well as her mom. I think with you we could put the odds in our favor."

Like all the Summers, Scott was very competitive and even took a snowball fight seriously as an opportunity to display his skills as tactician. To be fair, when snowballs were thrown with super-strength and telekinesis, things could get out of hand and required a referee.

Scott stopped at his wife's stricken expression. He immediately walked over to her and took Emma in his arms. She closed her eyes, sighing. It felt so good to be held by the man she loved with every fiber of her being. For several moments, she just listened to his strong heartbeat. It was slightly elevated out of concern for her. It had never mattered she couldn't read his thoughts; they knew each other so well as husband and wife.

"Scott …" she murmured finally. "If I traveled to the Astral Plane, we could purge Jon's mind of Apocalypse."

Scott pulled away from her, holding her at arm's length. His incredulous expression told her everything.

"Absolutely not," he said. "Not even Rachel would agree to that desperate plan."

"We did it once!" Emma pleaded, her blue eyes huge with worry. "Rachel and I exorcised Warren's mind on the Astral Plane."

"You had Tom and Rebecca," Scott replied. "Psylocke's children. They had a special connection with Warren."

Emma's thoughts flitted to her former students, Becky and Tom, the twin children of the X-Men Angel and Psylocke. She bit her lip as tears formed in her eyes. Those old wounds reopened painfully in her mind. The White Queen winced with almost physical agony.

"And Becky died doing it …" Scott said hoarsely.

He was such a stern leader and some might say callous, but when Emma placed her hand gently on her husband's cheek, she knew the leader of the X-Men was fighting back tears too. Tom and Rebecca were the kids of Warren Worthington, his close childhood friend and teammate. Emma knew Cyclops took each and every loss of a follower, especially such a young one, personally, no matter what Rachel said. (Though the poor girl, in Emma's opinion, certainly had reason to take her fury out on Scott's cruel but necessary reasoning over Jonathan.) The loss of Becky, his boyhood friend's daughter, was especially hard on Cyclops.

"Perhaps Becky is on the Astral Plane as well?" Emma murmured, burying her face in his chest.

Scott took her beautiful face in his calloused hands, gently massaging her smooth cheeks with his thumbs, dabbing the tears away.

"You didn't hesitate to send Becky or Tom into battle against Apocalypse, lover," Emma said to him, though she knew that was a cutting remark and a trifle unfair. Becky had gone only too willingly into battle to rescue the father she had never known … but Cyclops had permitted it and Emma knew he felt personally responsibility for her death. "Megan isn't much younger than they were at the time."

"Meg is my kid!" Scott hissed, his grip on her tightening. Emma sensed he'd snapped reflexively.

"You saw Becky as your own as well!" Emma growled right back, not intimidated.

Scott was without a doubt the head of his family and the X-Men, but Emma was still very much the heart of their family, the team and, most importantly, the School. She and her husband had always viewed each other as equals. "She was Warren's; she might as well have been yours! Megan has displayed power more incredible in the past four weeks alone than I've seen in my entire life. And Jeanie …" Emma trailed off, troubled. She couldn't track the girl. Why? The psychic dampers Rachel placed in the girl's mind shouldn't have affected Emma's ability to detect Jeanie. "Jeanie might be more powerful than we ever realized."

Scott seemed to look a question at his mate, but he carried on in an angry voice. "None of that matters, Emma," he said to her.

"Megan and Jeanie could be warriors, Scott!" Emma snarled. "Ruby too if you gave her a chance! If you gave them all the chance they deserve!"

"To what?! Die on the battlefield?" he replied, gently shaking her shoulders. "Something we watched so many children we loved do? Something we swore we'd prevent for our own children?"

"So I suppose Jon doesn't figure into that equation?" Emma spat ruthlessly.

Instead of anger, Scott's voice, usually so even and calm, was filled with deep hurt and despair.

"Emma, I love Jon. You know that. I am deeply disappointed if you don't."

"Yet you leave him to die … to save the others you love." Scott's silence was enough of a confirmation. Emma sighed sadly. "You do not change, my love," she added with a laugh devoid of humor. "It's comforting … in a twisted way, I suppose."

Emma sank down on the bed, feeling exhausted, dizzy and nauseated. She was so, so tired. Her shoulders sagged. Scott must have sensed her distress because he brought her the wastebasket and held back her straight blond hair as she vomited into it. He gently massaged her back with the other hand.

Emma coughed briefly, wiping her mouth with one hand. Yes, it was Scott, her lover, leader and mate, but she still felt a keen sense of embarrassment – though she had been violently ill almost every day with Ruby …

"Scott …" she murmured. When he seemed to feel secure she wouldn't be sick any longer, Cyclops sat down beside her on the edge of the bed. The kids' screams grew louder outside as Rogue laughed in triumph. The room trembled as the muffled thud of another tree hitting the ground shook the house.

"Do I need to get Hank?" he asked.

"No, of course not, darling," she replied.

He was such an attentive husband, such a good father to Megan and Ruby. Was it unfair of her to judge him over Jonathan? Emma thought of her step-grandson, the boy she loved. He would have grown up and found love of his own, perhaps. He was such a handsome thing, though he didn't interact well with other kids, not even his own cousins except for Oli – the two boys were always getting up to trouble. Jon, however, very unlike his sly friend Olivier had never shown any interest in girls, except his sister to which he was fiercely devoted.

Her thoughts moved nervously to Jeanie. How ironic, the headmistress of the Jean Grey School, a rallying place for tolerance and open-mindedness. But Emma Frost had a deep instinctive fear of what she did not understand.

"Scott … y-you were apprehensive when Rachel announced her pregnancy," Emma murmured, her head resting on his shoulder.

"Not as apprehensive as you were," he said in reply. Even during an argument, he couldn't resist teasing his beautiful wife. "You were very concerned – about becoming a grandmother!" he laughed.

She smiled, nuzzling his neck. "No, I mean, you seemed more worried about her choice for the twins' father instead of her actually carrying or birthing them," Emma stated.

Scott had never liked Franklin Richards. To Franklin's credit, Scott didn't really "like" anyone who hadn't proved their devotion and friendship to him for years on end. Scott didn't exactly hand out his trust to just anybody. When Franklin and Rachel, two lifelong best friends, had decided to procreate, Scott's contempt towards the boy had grown to mistrust and intense dislike.

Scott was silent for a few contemplative moments. Emma could hear Ruby's puppy barking in excitable high-pitched yaps as the snowballs flew thick outside.

"I knew Franklin Richards was very powerful – perhaps the most powerful of us all. And Rachel …" he trailed off. There was no need to even describe Rachel's sheer psychic energy. "I knew their children would be supremely powerful. We all did, I think."

Scott was a man of few words, but Emma could sense that instinctive protectiveness he still felt for his eldest daughter despite he and Rachel's past tumultuous relationship. It was still there … that initial love he felt for her when she was a baby and he was a much younger man, before resentment and anger buried it over time. But it never died; it never completely went away. It still remained in spite of all the long years of estrangement between father and daughter.

"But you never interfered?" Emma asked him.

Scott shrugged. "What was the use?" he said, tucking a strand of straight blond hair behind her ear. "Would I go back in time to stop Rachel being born to me and Jean?" Emma stiffened somewhat. Scott rarely talked about the past; he almost never mentioned his first wife – the White Queen's rival. "Besides, I love Jeanie and Jonathan. Looking back, if I had the chance to reverse time, I wouldn't try to stand between Rachel and Franklin."

"But you won't fight now to save Jon?" Emma murmured softly. Her question wasn't venomous or angry, just gentle with resignation.

"And neither will you," he replied.

Emma felt the anger come surging back, white-hot and blinding like sunlight on a sweltering day. No one – Cyclops or otherwise – told the White Queen what to do. She respected him as her leader, but she did exactly as she pleased. She always had. As her husband, Scott understood this; he had never ordered her around.

Emma snapped, her eyes blazing: "Rachel is twice as powerful as when we last faced Apocalypse. If we had Megan and Jeanie on our side …"

"Emma, I don't worry about what you _don't_ have to confront Jon," Scott said firmly. "I'm thinking about what you _do_ have now as opposed to last time when you helped Warren. It's the same reason Rachel hasn't asked you to face Jonathan on the Astral Plane. At the end of the day, Rachel isn't going to put her smallest siblings in harm's way any more than she would Ruby or Meg."

Emma just stared at Scott. Her face suddenly burned. She placed a hand on her belly. _Twins_. Yes, she could sense them already. Rachel could as well. Emma didn't know how she did it, but her stepdaughter was keenly aware of the children Emma carried almost as soon as she conceived. Rachel had been the same with Megan. And Ruby. It was only the beginning of the close bond Phoenix would share with her little half-sisters.

No doubt Rachel would share the same close bond with Emma's youngest children. Rachel was as protective of Scott and Emma's kids, if not more so, as their own parents.

"I'm not sending my pregnant wife into battle. Rachel isn't risking her little sisters … any of them," Scott said, a note of finality in his voice.

No argument, his tone implied. He was a father defending his unborn children. Nothing – not even the formidable White Queen, his venerable psychic love – would deter him.

"You can't stop me, Scott," Emma said, meeting his concussive-beam-generating eyes with her own equally determined icy stare.

"I can't. But Rachel can," he replied softly. "And she will."

Emma's blue eyes flashed. It chaffed horribly at her pride that Rachel's psychic power would soon eclipse her own. But what should she expect from Jean Grey's daughter? she thought, the heat rising to her face. If Emma ventured on the Astral Plane, was the White Queen pushing her stepdaughter to put her full telepathic powers to the test?

Emotionally and physically exhausted, she leaned her head on her husband's shoulder. He put his arms around her and held her gently. "They're twins, you know," Emma whispered into his ear. "Girls."

There newest daughters were like the eye of a hurricane, a gentle touch of comfort in this storm of chaos and sadness. Scott smiled delightedly at his wife, brushing her forehead with that perpetual stubble on his chin that seemed to appear no matter how often he shaved.

"I love it," he said, the enthusiasm and pride so apparent in his usually reserved tone that Emma had to grin. In that moment, the stern and formidable Cyclops sounded so much like his little Ruby, she thought. "Meg and Rube are going to flip."

Emma laughed softly. "Your tone implies perhaps not in the best way," she said. "Megan doesn't seem to think much of babies and Ruby …"

"Rube can be gentle when she tries," Scott said, a bit defensively.

He was an excellent father to both Megan and Ruby, but there were moments Emma wondered if Ruby was indeed his favorite child. In her way, she was so much like Cyclops – with his energy, precision, ambition and take-charge attitude. And every thought she had aspired to be like her dad. But there was something else too. When Emma mused over Scott's troubled past, she sometimes thought Ruby made him think of the happy childhood he could have had … if everything in his life hadn't gone to hell when he was a boy. The boisterous, enthusiastic child Ruby was could have been Scott Summers in a happier life.

"Yes, she can. Just look at her and her precious puppy Mister Darcy," Emma said and both parents laughed indulgently.

What would these new children be like? she wondered. Rambunctious and loud or sedate and thoughtful? So many possibilities. So much hope. It made even a cynic like Emma Frost smile. Life – new life – was irrepressible. Despite her misgivings and grief over Jeanie and Jon, the White Queen felt so honored to help usher these new little lives into the world.

"I've been thinking of names – Esme or Celeste?" she said.

"Suppose we're surprised with a boy?" Scott replied with a devilish smile. "Those would be odd names for our son."

Then he chuckled heartily at his wife's expression before kissing her tenderly on the forehead.

Suddenly, a snowball half the size of the Summers' home crashed thru the boathouse, leaving a gaping hole in the family room, allowing Scott and Emma to peer down from the new crater Ray and Ruby had put in their bedroom floor down to where Ray hovered meekly below them.

"Uhh … t-there were ducks, see?" Ray said timidly.

"And a bagel! Darcy was almost crushed!" Ruby added sticking her head inside the new door Ray had created into the family room. "It was Oli's fault!"

"Dammit, I just remodeled the den!" Scott groaned. He had labored hard to reconstruct the south wall of the family room after Ruby had "accidentally" disintegrated the back porch when she was twelve, including a new enclosed mudroom with mosquito screen. "New crown molding and everything! Young lady, you are rebuilding the back porch again!" he shouted at his youngest daughter – wait a minute, no-longer-youngest daughter.

"But I gotta redo Mamma's gazebo!" Ruby whined. "Ray-Ray made the snowball and Oli caused all the trouble!"

"Are you sure our children are safer here than on the Astral Plane?" Emma asked her husband, deadpan.

 ** _###_**

Jeanie, striding away from Olivier with Megan by her side, suddenly took her best friend's hand in her own. Because of her new psychic dampers, she couldn't sense Meg's confusion, jealousy or disappointment at Oli's flirting with Jeanie, but she didn't have to. Meg's own emotions were written all over her face like words in a book. She was as transparent as spring water and had always assumed the same in others.

Poor Meggie. And she adored Oli. He was a bit of an ass, to be sure, but Jeanie honestly enjoyed the handsome boy's attention. Was it her fault for being prettier than Meg and attracting her little boyfriend? Yes, that was a vain thought, but it was true.

Was it Jeanie's fault for Meg just assuming the best in others? she thought with a stab of frustration.

Was it Jeanie's fault for being more powerful than Meg? More powerful than anyone else besides her mother? More powerful than the White Queen?

Jeanie had gone inside Emma's mind - of course, that had been before the psychic dampers, but she _had_! Nobody had ever breeched Emma's mind ... And Emma couldn't even recall it?

True, Emma sensed something was up. Jeanie could feel her step-grandmother's ice-blue eyes following her from the upstairs bedroom window of the boathouse as Jeanie and Meg trotted towards the lake. Again, Jeanie didn't need her empathic powers to sense Emma's suspicion. A rock could feel that icy stare burning on it. Nobody duped the White Queen for very long. Jeanie wondered if it was pure luck that had allowed her to get the upper-hand psychically with her step-grandmother.

No. Not even coincidence could usurp Emma Frost. She was too good ...

And pregnant. Jeanie glanced up at the boathouse bedroom Emma shared with Grandpa Scott. Richards' blue eyes met Frost's icy stare as their gazes collided. Jeanie knew Emma carried more little aunties for her. Twins. She had known almost as soon as she arrived here for Winter Break. She vaguely wondered what they would look like. More little Ice Queen clones running around.

Jeanie knew she was being resentful and unfair. She knew Emma loved her and Jon - in some ways more than Meg and Ruby. Grandpa Scott too. They were sympathetic and kind, but the grownups couldn't _help_ them anymore, plain and simple. Perhaps they _wanted_ to, but what did Mama Laura always say? "If wishes were horses then beggars would ride."

 _Time to help myself ... and Jon_ , Jeanie thought. She didn't care who "heard" her thoughts anymore, Emma or Mama Rachel. Or even Meg, if she could, but Jeanie knew her best friend never would do something so awful as invade someone else's mind. Not little Meggie Summers. Not Cyclops' perfect daughter.

But Jeanie could and she would. And she had. And she would do it again if she could. Who the hell said she couldn't? Not even luck could best Emma Frost, but Jeanie had. She was the daughter of Franklin Richards and the granddaughter of Jean Grey. She had invaded the White Queen's mind; who was to say she couldn't break down the psychic dampers Phoenix had placed in her mind? Jeanie could feel them like a heavy mental collar she wanted to bite and scratch at like a tethered animal.

 _I can beat them down! I can break free! I can try!_ she thought. _I can save Jon on my own or die trying_! She couldn't project telepathically or even sense those around her - she was existing, not living, and if she didn't go to another dimension soon she would die anyway. She may as well die trying to save her brother instead of uselessly here. What the hell did she have to lose?

She glanced at the young girl walking beside her and her heart gave a painful throb of love for Meg. The weak winter sunlight was shining thru Meg's spun-gold hair like a fairy-princess in one of the silly storybooks Meg read to her when they were little kids. She had Meggie to lose. Her best friend.

They were walking along the lake now hand-in-hand just like they did when they were small. Meg had to trot a bit to keep up with Jeanie's long strides. The plummeting temperature caused the girls' breath to cluster in clouds around their faces. Some geese, snowbirds from the tundra lands far North of the boreal forests, were hanging out on the lake, gabbling loudly. They were famously grumpy, nothing like Ray-Ray's gregarious Mrs. Duck, especially this time of year when snows kept the springtime away.

If the temperature kept dropping this way the lake would freeze and the geese would be left flat-footed on the ice. The fowl's loss was the children's gain. Then there would be laughter and fun sliding, skating, or (in Meg's case) falling on the lake ice. Jeanie's thoughts flew to years past, skating delicately across the smooth surface of the lake as fish swam in the dark water beneath the thick scum of translucent ice under her skates. Of course, being a true Northern girl, Jeanie had been able to ski and skate skillfully almost since she could walk. Laura had taught her.

Rachel, Ruby and Ray were pretty good too - though nothing like Laura - unlike Meg who was abysmally bad. Meg would cling to a chair for dear life, pushing it across the ice and staggering behind it as Jon and Jeanie gracefully skated circles around her and Oli teased his pretty friend by tugging her blond hair and gliding away, laughing, because Megan couldn't catch him.

Later, Oli would fall in the freezing lake thru a patch of ice that was suddenly mysteriously thin under Jeanie's telekinetic gaze.

Of course, Rachel would fetch Oli out immediately and wrap him, with his teeth chattering, in fleece blankets, allowing him to warm himself by the flames her power generated. Jeanie's Mama would glare at her daughter, but she couldn't prove anything. Rachel wouldn't go inside Jeanie's mind anymore than Meg would to expose her guilt.

 _But she'd go in my mind to put dampers there_ ... Jeanie thought bitterly. _To protect everyone else from me. Mama doesn't care about me - or Jon ... So long as the team is safe._

Rachel preferred flying to skating, of course, like Rogue. Jeanie, like the other kids, couldn't think of anything more wonderful than flying. All the cousins (except Ray, of course) were envious of this _Gift_. Skating was a bit like flying, but you were still attached to the Earth - or water, frozen water. Flying was freedom, sheer untethered joy and Rachel reveled in it. It had taken her years to master it. Jeanie was just learning and it was hard going, like a wobbly little fledgling bird, ready to be buffeted over by the first stiff wind. Jeanie had hoped someday she could fly as well as her mother.

But those aspirations seemed childish and faraway now. Jeanie's thoughts were consumed with her twin brother on the Astral Plane. Playing in the snow and sliding on the ice seemed so distant.

These things were supposed to make her feel better and help Megan, like Grandpa Scott said, but they only did for a little while. And all Jeanie's selfless devotion and bravery didn't bring Jonathan back.

"Why don't we go ice skating?" Meg suddenly suggested. "You know how awful I am." Meg was soaking up Jeanie's hellish emotions like a sponge. Jeanie never thought she'd be this bad off to deserve Meggie's pity.

Jeanie suddenly grabbed both Meg's hands which felt so warm in hers. Meg's blue eyes widened a bit. Jeanie knew her friend's family wasn't very demonstrative. Usually, the girls would have communicated telepathically, but now Jeanie had to get her point across by other means.

"M-Meggie," she stuttered. _Argh_! How she hated using the damn words. She was a psychic. Verbal communication was clumsy and archaic to her. She was embarrassed in front of pretty Meg. Jeanie knew she sounded like a stupid fool talking this way. "M-Me, no, _I_ go to Astral Plane," she said, stringing the words together in a broken chain. "I break d-dampers. I break free!"

Meg's eyes were huge blue saucers. A slight wind ruffled her blond hair.

"W-What?! No!" she yelped. "Absolutely not! You can't!"

" _Can't_!" Jeanie laughed in a humorless bark. "Who say I _can't_?"

"Um, our parents!" Meg exclaimed. "All the grownups! It's dangerous! Jon is dangerous, Jeanie!"

 _Apocalypse_ ... the word was there, but Megan didn't say it. No one did. They were scared. Fear made them all helpless as baby birds.

Well, Jeanie was done cowering down and accepting Jonathan's fate.

"A-And your mom put the dampers in your mind for a reason ..."

The redhead just shook her head at her best friend. Little Meggie - so much power, but no imagination. "To hold me down. Hold me back, Mama did!" Jeanie growled thru gritted teeth. "Grownups say let them help Jon. Emma say she help Jon. Did she? No! My turn to help Jon!"

Meg winced. Jeanie hadn't realized she was squeezing her hands, but when Jeanie loosened her grip on the girl, Meg didn't run away. Meg had courage under all that mousiness, Jeanie would hand her that.

The girls - one short and blond, the other tall with flaming hair - standing face-to-face were reflected exactly in the lake's mirror. Jeanie couldn't know that her grandfather Scott had held her grandmother Jean's hands in this way in this exact spot decades ago. Meg was doing the same, tethering her beautiful best friend who possessed an enormous power and reminding her that she was still a _person_ , not just a _force_.

An image suddenly popped into Meg's brain - the same image she had had at the convenience store - of a beautiful red-haired woman saying: "Don't let this happen, Meg; don't let history repeat itself!"

Meg grasped at her throbbing temples.

"You feel it too!" Jeanie said. "Meggie!" she grasped her friend's arm and gazed imploringly into her blue eyes. "Look how powerful we are. You cause storms - two in one week - more powerful than Emma even now and you just little girl! And me ..." Jeanie trailed off with a pang of guilt.

She couldn't tell Meg how she had invaded her mother's mind.

"But our powers need tempering!" Meg said, equally pleading with Jeanie and echoing her mother's lectures. "We need training before we can realize our full potentials. There are reasons for rules and limitations. The grownups -"

" _Grownups_!" Jeanie spat. "And what they do for us, Meggie? What Emma do for your storms? What grownups do for Jon? Nothing! What Mama do for me? Make me into a-a ..." Jeanie groped for the right word. A creature half-alive, an animated corpse. " _Zombie_! I can't live! I go now! Break dampers. Go to Jon!"

Jeanie tried to pull away, but Meg tightened her grip on her best friend. She remembered hiding here in the rushes by the lake, looking for Mrs. Duck's eggs in the tall reeds. "B-But what about me, Jeanie Bean? What about Rach? Ruby and Ray? Dad and Mom? What about us? Don't you care anymore?" Meg pleaded in a whisper.

Tears blurred Jeanie's vision as she glanced down at the slick icy lake-shore banks. "I ... love you, Meg, but ..." She gazed at her best friend with a tortured expression. "What if it was _Ruby_?"

For the first time since their argument began, Meg drew back. Jeanie couldn't read her thoughts now, but this was exactly what Meg had been pondering since she learned of Jonathan's fate. However, this was the first time the dark thought had confronted her head-on. And it petrified her.

Yes, Meg cherished her entire family. Her parents, Rachel, Jeanie especially.

But Ruby ...?

Meg's tortured thoughts turned to her wayward sibling. Everything, every sacrifice, was worth her precious sister.

She knew exactly how Jeanie felt for her brother. She knew because she would do the exact same to save Ruby. And that right there won the argument.

Meg bowed her head, but her expression was still defiant.

"You can't stop me," Jeanie said. "If I can break free Mama's dampers, nobody can."

"I'm not going to try to stop you," Meg murmured. She pulled Jeanie into an embrace. Jeanie's eyes widened and she stiffened a bit. Megan Summers didn't exactly hug folks right and left. "But I'm going with you, Jeanie Bean. Count on that! I won't let you go alone."

Meg was thinking of the red-haired woman who was inexplicably in her thoughts telling her to protect Jeanie, but she was also thinking of Jeanie Richards, her best friend in the whole wide world. Yes, Ruby was her sister, but Jeanie was irreplaceable in her own way too.

And Meg had a super power of her own - a massive one. She'd always had Jeanie Bean's back; she wasn't going to stop now.

"But I gotta tell Mom," she said resolutely. "She can go with us to the Astral Plane. You, me and her can save Jonathan. Together, we'll be powerful enough to do it!"

" _No_!" Jeanie snapped, her blue eyes flashing. Meg winced a bit at her tone and, to her credit, Jeanie's sharp voice softened up a bit when she added: "Your Mama's pregnant, Meggie. She can't face off with Jon. Your little baby sisters won't get hurt on my watch."

Meg's eyes only had time to widen as big as plates. _Pregnant?! Sisters?_

 _Oh, Mom is going to pay for this_ ... a furious thought seeped thru her shock. Really, was it like she wasn't even a member of this family? And Mom hadn't even breathed a word of this to her and Ruby.

Dad hadn't either. Wait, did Dad know? Of course Dad knew. He was Dad.

That brought up a whole new crop of thoughts in Meg's brain that made her freckles run together into one big blush. _Parents have sex ... No. No. Nope. The stork brings babies!_ she cheerfully/manically ordered her brain. _Or they come out of a foul-smelling thistle plant_. That's what Olivier had told her when she was five.

 _And that is_ exactly _what happens_! Meg silently shouted at the crowd of thoughts clamoring in her head.

Jeanie spread her arms and reached up to the heavens. Her eyes and hands began to glow with a pinkish aura the way Rachel's did when she was agitated. The form of a huge raptor-like bird was beginning to take shape around the girl. _Phoenix_ ... Meg thought, enraptured. She'd seen Rach do it since she could remember. Seeing Jeanie do it was ... awe-inspiring. Like watching a rock burst into flame.

But the Phoenix couldn't take form completely. Jeanie could not unleash this incredible power within her. _The dampers!_ Meg thought.

"G-Go inside my mind, Meggie, do it!" Jeanie hissed, her teeth clenched, sweat beading on her forehead and rolling down her chin."Remove the dampers! Please!"

Meg stood there, her blond hair swirling around her in the whirlwind made by Jeanie's Phoenix Force and she felt she stood on a threshold between childhood and adulthood - or that's how she would look back on this moment in her life. She'd been told what to do and when to do it her entire life. Now, she really, really, REALLY wanted someone to tell her what to do. But her mom was ... _preggo_ ... So sending her to the Astral Plane to face an evil entity was not an option. Sending Jeanie there alone wasn't an option either.

 _Oh, God, I want someone to tell me what to do!_ she thought, but there was no one there but Jeanie and she was about to recklessly go headlong into the Astral Plane. And there was nothing, not one thing, Meggie could do about it, but follow her. If Meg didn't break the chains of Jeanie's psychic dampers, Jeanie would bang her head, metaphorically, against the ground until they were gone or she was dead.

That Summers stubbornness ...

"L-Let me ... get RACHEL!" Meg suddenly cried. Yes! Ha, she was a genius! Why hadn't she thought of her big half-sister? Of course the leader of the X-Men would have the solution. _And I won't have to take charge_ ... Meg thought with a dizzying mixture of guilt and relief.

"NOOOO!" Jeanie bellowed, her eyes glowing ferociously, in a voice that wasn't her own. It didn't sound like one voice, but thousands. Meg clapped her hands to her ears as it seemed the sound would explode inside her brain.

Jeanie suddenly grasped Meg's forefinger and thumb. She stabbed it to her forehead and Meg felt an electric shock rocket thru her body as Jeanie _forced_ Meg into her best friend's mind and thoughts ...

Inside Jeanie's thoughts, Meg found herself standing before a roaring fireplace, the boathouse fireplace the girls' would play Pretty Ponies by when they were little. But the fire had died down to a tiny dying flicker. Jeanie was sitting hunched before the dying flame. She looked up at Meg.

Megan gasped. Jeanie's face was shrunken and sallow, her eyes sunken and sick, like the face of a dying person. She held out a greying hand pleadingly to her best friend.

 _I have to remove the dampers_ ... _Or she'll die_. Megan thought, Jeanie's suffering taking over her friend's empathic powers.

Jeanie knew Meg, as an empath, could not deny her when she saw her friend's torment for herself. Meg could no more stifle her drive to end someone's suffering - let alone her best friend's - than stop her own heart beating. Meg was acting purely on instinct when she crept to the fire and stirred it up with a poker. The fire exploded into a blazing inferno, almost engulfing the room, as it took the shape of a fiery raptor and wrapped its flaming wings around both Jeanie and Megan.

Meg opened her eyes. She and Jeanie were still by the lake, but they were - _floating_! And an enormous fire-bird had engulfed both of them, flapping its massive wings and making the lake's surface ripple from its fiery feathers. Was Meg emanating the power herself to levitate or was Jeanie lifting her with the power of the Phoenix Force?

Meg had no idea. She was just too freaked out to try to understand it all.

Jeanie grasped her best friend's hand. _Thank you! Com'on, Meggie_ , Jeanie's telepathic "voice" spoke strongly inside Megan's head. No more verbal communication for Jeanie Bean; with her dampers removed, her psychic abilities were as powerful as ever. _Let's go to the Astral Plane! Let's get Jon and end this! We're more powerful than the X-Men. So we're more powerful than Apocalypse. Let's show the bastard what comes of messing with us!_

And in a blinding flash, holding hands, encased in a bird of fire, the girls flew away to another dimension.


	22. The Tiger's Cub

**_Salutations everybody! Here is a new chapter for you!_**

 ** _I want to thank Guest for their encouraging and insightful reviews. Your words are very much appreciated. Yep, little Jeanie has an edge and I really enjoy writing her! And don't worry ... it will be revealed how all these peeps came to be where they are now! Yes, "relatively" stable state of affairs definitely!_**

 ** _Again, thanks for reading and reviewing. Please don't be shy to leave more comments and feedback. Gracias!_**

 ** _-Maria_**

 ** _Chapter XXII: The Tiger's Cub_**

The grownups were fighting again. Ray hated when the grownups did that. This time it was Emma and Scott. She had overheard them when she flew up above their window. Before she dropped her gigantic snowball in her rush to save Mrs. Duck.

Ray-Ray knew Emma didn't like her very much - for the usual reasons people didn't like her: she ate too much and caused too much of a mess, but Ray had learned not to take it personally. She tended to be a high-maintenance kid. Emma didn't like Oli either, but not many people really liked Oli except the girls who were smitten with him - like Meg.

But Ray liked her Uncle Scott. He understood that sometimes little girls caused large explosions. He himself possessed a power that was barely controllable and, furthermore, he had his own little girl with the same almost limitless power. So he was sympathetic and kind to Ray.

Few people took Ray very seriously unless she was throwing a truck or leveling a building. Then they took her very, very seriously. At other times, Ray did her very best not to draw attention to herself, so she had a tendency to be overlooked. But Uncle Scott always had time for her. They shared the same rather reserved personality and they would bond over the weird artifacts Scott had from his boyhood.

Ray's Mama said Uncle Scott had a "hoarding problem." He tended to hold onto things from his past instead of talk about them, but Ray understood. She lived around two people who talked constantly ... about _everything_. The past, the present and especially what someone should and shouldn't do. Sometimes it was nice to get a break from all that jawing and look at stupid old stuff.

Uncle Scott gave Ray a neat old gadget called a "cassette player" and showed her a cool trick, how to take a pencil eraser and roll up the cassette tape film when it spilled out. The other kids watched music videos on hologram-projectors, but Ray loved her cassette player. She liked how she could stop the music by punching a button hard on the cassette player and then rewind or fast-forward it with a scrambled squeaking noise that sounded like a chipmunk.

After Ray's next, and by far largest (it was roughly half as big as the boathouse) snowball, with the aid of Ruby's concussive eye-beams, made a new door in the boathouse family room, Scott got rather cross with his daughter. This was unusual; Uncle Scott was stern, but he rarely lost his temper with his girls or any of the kids really. As Ray often thought before, Scott was only too familiar with the havoc super-powers could wreck. But, _damn_ , the man had rebuilt the boathouse in some capacity multiple times since Ruby could walk. Right before Ray and her family arrived this Winter Break, Ruby had demolished Emma's gazebo. Well ... actually a boulder did, but Ruby had certainly helped it along.

A lot like Ray LeBeau, Ruby Summers had the tendency to be a walking disaster.

Ray wondered if there would be more little walking disasters soon. Emma was going to have a baby. Well, babies. Twins, specifically. Dammit, the Summers made high-powered kids at a rate that made Rogue envious. Ray always thought the LeBeau's and the Summers' were in some sort of super-powered baby-making arms race. Ray's Mama was practically green when she found out Emma had beat her to becoming a grandma.

Ray felt hungry again. Well, no, she wasn't hungry. She _wanted to eat_. There was a difference as Rogue reminded her daughter only too often. Ray had never felt hungry that she could remember because she ate so often (like every 15 minutes), but eating helped her ... _feel_ good. Well, feel better. Ray almost never felt good.

Now, Ray felt pretty bad about Ruby catching all the blame about what Ray was already beginning to think of as "Snowball 2020." Every time the kids' caused a disaster, it was christened like a hurricane: "The Gazebo Incident," "The Lingerie Affair," "The Explosion of 2012." Ray timidly flew down to stand alongside her little cousin and put her hand staunchly on Ruby's shoulder. Ruby didn't share any of Uncle Scott's pensive nature as far as Ray could tell, but she was still drawn to the girl. Part of this friendship came from their early childhood when Ray was the only one of the cousins strong enough to play games with rowdy little Ruby.

"I can help clean up the mess," Ray offered.

"NO!" Emma and Scott said simultaneously. Ray wasn't a bad girl by any means, but when she tried to put things right, somehow she just made them worse. Emma and Scott were both thinking if she tried to help rebuild the boathouse, there would soon be none at all.

Emma did that thing where she pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. Meg said she was doing that a lot these days. Ray had seen Emma do it at least a dozen times since she got here. "Ray-Ray, darling, why don't you go get Olivier out of trouble?" the White Queen suggested in a tired voice.

Ray nodded sullenly, scuffing at the wreckage of wood paneling and crown molding Uncle Scott had lovingly installed less than a year ago blown to bits. Covering her brother's ass was a job Ray actually wasn't bad at. She'd been doing it since he was born.

As she flew away, leaving Ruby to her fate, Ray thought about Emma and Scott's argument. They disagreed sometimes, but they still loved each other. It always surprised Ray; it was such an alien notion to the girl. Living with Rogue, it was her way or the highway. Rogue accepted no ideas but her own. It made sense to Ray. Rogue was the most powerful of the super-powerful inhabitants at the New Orleans School – nearly the most powerful being on the planet – why shouldn't her word be law?

Marie wasn't a cruel parent, but she took no back-talk or sass from her children. Ruby and Meg weren't disobedient girls – at least until Ruby started sneaking off recently. But Emma and Scott seemed to encourage their daughters to voice their views and concerns. Rachel too seemed to rely on diplomacy and compromise in raising her twins. Rogue, of course, had something to say about all of this. (Ray's mother had something to say about _everything_ , it seemed). Specifically, the cause of the Summers children's less-than-savory behavior stemmed from their parents' child-rearing methods.

Rogue did not voice her opinions to Emma or Rachel because Emma and Rachel were more powerful than she. This chaffed at Rogue's enormous ego, but instead of turning her bitter, the Rogue Queen saw opportunity. For all her flippant façade, Rogue could be quite cunning. (Ray expected Oli inherited it from _somewhere_.) Marie had paired up Oli and little Meg almost since they were infants. A match between the two would put the venerable Summers tribe squarely in her camp and, as an added bonus, lots and lots of supremely powered grand-babies for Miss Rogue's superhero army she had long dreamed of.

As a mother and headmistress of the New Orleans School, Marie viewed her offspring and numerous students as soldiers in a grand army and Rogue was their general. And she expected all of them to silently take orders. The Rogue Queen did not hear any arguments because she did not care how her subjects felt about what she was certain was best for them. Their opinion was invalid in face of an obvious solution – hers.

This caused her children to either be very sneaky (as was the case with Oli) or very suppressed (like Ray) or both (like both LeBeau siblings). Rogue was indeed what Emma called a "Tiger Mamma." Her children were the best and she expected the best. Ruby was 14 now and she had only just begun training in the Jean Grey School's Danger Room – and only because Cyclops deemed it the best outlet for Ruby's enormously explosive powers (and because he was tired of rebuilding the boathouse).

Ray had begun training in the New Orleans School's Danger Room almost as soon as she began toilet-training. Ray had exceptionally powerful abilities like Ruby, but back home Ray was not an exception. Here, kids (except for special cases like Ruby) began DR training in Form 10, around the age of 15 or 16, depending more or less on their powers.

At the New Orleans School, students began DR training as soon as possible. Age was hardly ever a factor. And with kids' _Gifts_ manifesting earlier and earlier these days (in some cases well before puberty), it wasn't unusual to see eight-year-olds on DR teams at Rogue's School. Ray knew it was something Emma, as headmistress of Rogue's sister School, and especially Rachel, as leader of the X-Men, disapproved of. Kids were kids. Emma and Rachel had fought hard to ensure their children and students would have a happy childhood – something they had both been so cruelly denied. According to them, kids should be trained to keep themselves and others safe from their powers, but childhood was primarily a time for gentle learning and play.

However, it wasn't a topic the telepaths challenged Rogue over. New Orleans, with its sprawling River, perpetual spring and Carnival, was Rogue's turf, in the same way the Jean Grey School, with its temperate woodlands, winter snowfalls and shining lakes, belonged to Phoenix and the White Queen. It was an unspoken law that no one, no matter how powerful, challenged anyone under their own roof. A blood relative could, however. Another reason Rogue was so eager for one of her kids to marry into the Summers family.

Ray loathed fighting, but that wasn't an excuse you gave Rogue. In fact, you didn't give Rogue any excuse, unless maybe you were dead.

Ray could vividly remember turning ten years old in the Danger Room. (Rogue didn't exactly believe in celebrating birthdays with balloons and cake; her kids' birthdays marked surviving another year and getting stronger in their careers as fighters.) Her tenth birthday found Ray sparring with her Mama for the first time at midnight in the Danger Room. As many times as Ray flew up to confront her, Rogue kept swatting her down again and again like a pesky fly. But no matter how many times she fell, her daughter found the strength to scramble back up again.

Rogue, however, wasn't impressed as she hovered imperiously over her child. "You're two-digits now, girl, and you still can't beat me?" she demanded.

 _Who the hell could_?! Ray wondered. _Rachel or Emma or maybe even Scott, but not a ten-year-old girl_.

But she stayed silent. Nobody who valued their health talked back to the Rogue Queen.

"I'm _trying_ , Mama," Ray said apologetically, keeping her eyes cast down as the holographic scenario the New Orleans School's Danger Room had cooked up, of ratty abandoned old tenements, disintegrated around mother and daughter. The sleek metallic walls of the Danger Room's true form floated up around them.

"Oh, you tryin,' huh?" Rogue growled. "Maybe if ya _really_ tryin' you'da beat me by now!"

"I'm ten – "

"I's there when you'se born, girl!" Rogue snapped, her green eyes narrowing dangerously. "Jesus, I birthed you _durin'_ a battle. Without pain meds either. Yeah, ya ten – congratulations," she said flatly. "Ya also my young'un. What people gonna say about the Rogue's child can't hold her own inna fight, huh? What people gonna _think_ that they ain't sayin'?"

In the same way the LeBeau kids made Emma Frost nervous, Rogue was generally unnerved by powerful telepathy. It was one of the few skills she did not possess; Rogue desired to be the most powerful person in the room – or the world.

"I'm sorry, Mama …"

"Sorry ain't enough, girl. An' don't mumble. You hold ya head high when ya speakin' to me! Remember whose kid you are," Rogue said sternly. "Work harder to make it better. Train on Level 13 – Yes, Level 13!" Rogue added at her daughter's wide-eyed expression. "Until you can lift a finger to me."

"It's my birthday, Mama …"

Rogue's hand snaked out to grasp her daughter's arm. Ray knew better than to struggle; she couldn't even if she wanted to. Her mother had her trapped like a caged butterfly. "You see that, pup?" Rogue hissed, bringing Ray's face close to her own. The woman's face was beautiful, but also terrifying in Ray's eyes. "Don't even break a sweat."

She released Ray, tossing the girl like a ragdoll. Ray recovered, levitating, but puffing for air. Rogue sniffed. "Better it _is_ ya birthday. Maybe it'll remind you that, at ya age, you ain't near enough where I want you!"

The DR doors opened automatically with a hiss to allow the Rogue Queen to fly out. Ray sighed. What the hell was the use? No matter how hard she tried she'd never be what her Mama wanted of her. So why even try?

Ray pictured her mother's face contorted in beautiful anger and shivered. She knew why.

Two hours of fruitless training later found Ray-Ray breathless and exhausted. The holo-generated surroundings of an alien planet populated by what looked like asparagus-people suddenly dissolved around her. The asparagus-man Ray was about to show exactly how she felt about vegetables disintegrated in her hands.

 _Oli_ ...

That sly little dog was the only kid at the New Orleans School who could slip into the Danger Room's control booth. Ray still wasn't exactly sure how he did it, but she was positive there was no place her little brother couldn't go if he wanted to.

Nobody really knew how Olivier got in and out of places he wasn't supposed to go. Their Mama told the kids about a woman she knew, Kitty Pryde, who could walk thru walls. Ray knew how to keep Oli from snooping, however. Just insinuate that something was worth looking into. Tell him to stay away from something and he was on it like stink on shit. Even if the thing didn't really interest him in and of itself, Oli couldn't resist a challenge of any kind.

The ultra-forbidden Danger Room control booth, therefore, was old hat to her master-trickster brother. Telepaths weren't the only thing that couldn't detect Olivier LeBeau. Security systems of all kinds, including the state-of-the-art technology within and without the New Orleans School, were useless to combat his ninja-esque powers of stealth. He was a master spy. He moved liked a cat's shadow and was as invisible as air when he wanted to be.

Everyone who knew Oli for any amount of time knew their secrets were as good as his.

The funny thing was Oli didn't actually _turn invisible_ . He was very much there, slipping right under people's noses, literally. But they couldn't see him. Whether he was playing a mind-trick on his victims to make them forget he was in front of them, Ray didn't know, but she herself was immune to his powers. She could see Oli's tricks clear as day. It wasn't entirely due to her being his sibling, though that was part of why he couldn't fool her.

Ray too knew things she probably shouldn't. Most people, she knew, assumed she wasn't very bright, so they kind of underestimated her. And in a way, Ray's rather simple nature was her advantage – while others complicated matters and tried to overanalyze everything, she looked for the obvious solution.

The Winter Break she was four years old, everyone was shocked that she knew about Emma's pregnancy with Ruby.

"Is she developing a new power?" Rogue wondered aloud to Uncle Hank McCoy.

"Hmm …" Dr. McCoy pondered. "A secondary mutation, perhaps?"

No. She hadn't. Ray was flying by Emma and Scott's open window and overheard her telling him about their new daughter. Like Oli, Ray couldn't be detected psychically.

Furthermore, Ray saw straight thru bullshit. Olivier Etienne LeBeau held no powers of deception over his sister. But he didn't worry. Ray never snitched. It was sibling's honor. If Oli switched the tennis balls on the School's ball machine with crème pies Ray didn't tattle. And if Ray ate her weight in pizza rolls Oli didn't say a word. Ray also kept a detailed tally of Oli's many girlfriends, so he wouldn't mix them up or they'd get wise of each other.

It had been that way since they could remember.

Ray had secrets too of course … and not just about the 75 chicken wings she'd eaten thru a Rangers/Huskies' hockey match she'd watched with Ruby and Uncle Scott. Having a Tiger Mamma made a tough cub for sure and Ray seemed as hard as nails, but she had a _secret love_ though she didn't dare breathe a word of it to her mother. She and Oli had learned early on what and how to hide from their Mama and they were very, very good at it.

Ray was always amazed at the number of toys her cousins Meg and Ruby got to play with. They got to watch cartoons and play in the rain. Meg could raise rabbits and Ruby could play hockey even though those hobbies didn't really contribute to them mastering their powers. The girls, however, didn't consider themselves spoiled.

Rogue forbade anything she thought might distract her children from their rigorous training. This included toys, books, television, music, extracurricular activities or anything that Rogue didn't deem as furthering her kids' education. The one exception was what the LeBeau siblings did or got when they visited the Summers on Winter Break. Rogue was careful not to step on Emma or Rachel's toes on their own territory and it was just one reason these vacations to see Ruby and Meg meant so much to Ray.

These trips were a rare taste of freedom for the girl.

It went without saying then that birthday parties were also out. Meg and Ruby told their cousins about them. There were balloons and bounce houses and funny clowns and (most importantly to Ray) a huge cake with two, sometimes three layers. Sometimes the layers were even different flavors. Winter Break occasionally coincided with Ruby or Meg's birthday, so Ray got to see it for herself. It was amazing! And there were gifts too – not just big ones for the birthday-girl, but smaller ones for the party guests. Meg and Ruby considered these "favors," as they called them, frivolous, but Ray had kept and hidden each and every one of them she was given. She was ten now and Rogue might have excused her daughter playing with silly things when she was four, but if she knew Ray took out her party favors she'd accumulated from time to time to admire them, she would have severely punished her child. Ray couldn't seem to help herself, however. She especially loved the little toy that rolled out of a tight coil like a snake when you blew into it. It made a happy " _wee_!" sound.

Now, the Danger Room scenario began to change. Olivier did this when he hijacked the DR control room. What he changed the session scenario depended on how he felt about those training in the DR. Omar Stanz got a three-headed fire-breathing dragon when Oli caught him training alone in the Danger Room. He'd made poor Suzie Benefield just sit thru four hours of watching shaggy Highland cattle graze on a seaside landscape.

Oli got really creative with Ray, however.

The asparagus-people that had been attacking her moments ago were now smiling (as much as asparagus-people could, she guessed) and wearing festive hats. They were carrying a massive three-layered chocolate cake in their green stalky arms and singing that stupid song that Meg said everyone sang at birthday parties, "Happy Birthday to You!"

It was the dumbest song Ray had ever heard in her life, but secretly she wanted – just once – for somebody to sing it to _her_.

"Happy Birthday, dear sis!" Oli's voice on the DR intercom joined the asparagus-people's chorus.

Ray rarely smiled, but now she was beaming … until she tried to take a bite out of the enormous imaginary cake and she realized she was chewing on air. Her face fell back into a frown. Oli's dumb jokes. Her surrounding vanished around her, back to slick metallic walls.

She stared at the equally-shiny floor and bit her lip. Ray didn't dare cry, not even away from her mother's eyes.

Oli, grinning, came strolling out thru the sliding metallic doors to greet her. When he saw the look on her face, he paused. Oli could charm "the horns off a billy-goat" as their Mama would say, but he was always honest with Ray. Making an honest man out of young LeBeau was a supernatural ability itself.

"Cake ain't real, little bro," she murmured.

"Yeah …" he replied. "Sorry 'bout that, sis."

He looked truly sorry and Ray knew he was. Olivier, age nine at that time, led a very different life than his sister, but also a very similar one. Rogue did not strenuously train her son in combat the way she did her daughter. For one, he didn't have any of Ray's physical prowess. He could run rings around her agility-wise and, of course, Ray was causing an accident with every step she took, so while Oli trained hard in the DR within reason to his skills, his tutelage didn't even compare to the hellish scenarios Rogue put Ray thru, pushing the girl's super-strength and near-invulnerability to the limits.

For another, Oli was being groomed by his mother, just not in the same way Ray was. Rogue reared her daughter to be a warrior; she trained her son to be a diplomat, an ambassador. Ray, and everyone else at the New Orleans School, even called him "The Little Prince." Rogue had _plans_ for her boy. Oli was silver-tongued and charming, as charismatic as they came. He was his mother's ticket into the formidable Summers clan, paving the way to extend Rogue's empire. And Ray was the muscle to back her up.

So Rogue didn't chide her son for his disarming behavior, she encouraged it – boasted about it, even. Ray always sensed he was their mother's favorite child and she guessed she should have resented it, but Ray knew, deep down, Olivier was in the same situation she was. She supposed – no, she _knew_ – he was trapped in his role their mother had chosen for him and he saw no way out.

"Got ya somethin'," he said a bit shyly, pushing a small rectangular package wrapped neatly in colorful paper into her hands. The paper had Action Cats on it. Action Cats was Ray's favorite cartoon to watch when she visited Meg and Ruby. One thing Ray loved about her little bro is he dropped the bullshit around her. She wondered if she was the only person to ever see his true self.

"You know Mama's gonna be mad," Ray warned. The siblings were good at keeping secrets, but they never forgot the reason they did.

"Mama don't give us birthday presents; she never say _we_ can't," Oli pointed out to which Ray snorted; she doubted the Rogue Queen would see things that way.

"Open it now," he urged her. Ray couldn't help but smirk at the eager excited expression on her baby brother's face. Cool nonchalant Olivier wouldn't let anyone else see him this way – except maybe little Meggie Summers.

Ray carefully peeled off the paper, taking pains not to tear it. Of course, she would save it. It came from Meg and Ruby's house and Ray would use it to wrap Oli's birthday present as well.

"Surprise!" Oli called out. Ray was thrilled her brother had brought her a gift, but she couldn't help but stare at the small grey rectangular object she had unwrapped. Was this one of Oli's jokes?

"What is it?" she asked him ... as if she didn't know.

"Cassette tape," he replied, then he pulled his glasses down and winked at his sister. Oli had snake-eyes, at least that was how Ray thought of them. They were shining red with tiny black pupils that could shrink to slits like a viper's. Ray was the only one who could look into his eyes and not fall under his spell. Someone's mind didn't belong to himself when he looked Oli LeBeau in the eye; then they were completely under his control. This was the reason Oli constantly wore shades. He never showed his eyes to anyone – except Ray.

Ray smiled and blushed a bit. Oli knew her secret – her biggest secret. Because of course he did. She wasn't angry at him. She wouldn't have dreamed of being mad at him. She was actually relieved he knew her big secret and, of course, grateful for his supportiveness. She expected nothing less of her brother, but that didn't make her appreciate it any less.

"Play it on Uncle Scott's cassette player!" Oli said eagerly. Of course, he wasn't supposed to know about Uncle Scott giving Ray-Ray that cassette player, but Oli being Oli, he did.

Ray grabbed her brother's hand as a pretense to go up to her room, but Olivier shooed her away. "Nah, this is your thing, girl," he said, waving his hand. Ray was truly touched. Oli, who would wade thru hell and high water, to know others' secrets just because he could, wanted Ray to have a moment alone with her new treasure.

She had no idea how to thank her brother properly; Ray always felt overwhelmed with gratitude when anyone gave her even the smallest trifling thing. But this – this was the most thoughtful gift her brother could have given her.

Suddenly, she kissed him on the cheek. His strange snake-eyes widened and a flush crept up his face. Ray giggled out a rare laugh. Oli was always stealing kisses from girls. It was so unusual and hilarious when he was taken by surprise. She bet no one expected dull little Ray-Ray to do it.

Oli looked so embarrassed and shy she had to give him another peck just to tease him. "Go away, Ray!" he said, grinning. "I'll cover for you if Mama comes back."

That was almost as great a birthday gift as her new cassette tape. Ray gave him a third kiss for this second present and flew out the metallic sliding doors of the DR. As she was gliding away, she backtracked slightly to the DR control booth. Ray grinned as she punched in a new program scenario for Olivier. A new holographic program shimmered up around her brother – he was suddenly dressed in a white tuxedo holding a pink plastic water-gun. He was surrounded by beautiful dangerous-looking women.

Ruby giggled delightedly at the expression on her baby brother's face as he faced the Danger Room's new program she had created. She flew away to play her new cassette tape.

 ** _###_**

This was Ray's favorite memory of her brother, which was saying a lot considering a life lived with Oli was never a dull moment.

Back in present day, Ray landed next to Olivier and, with one pull, accomplished what her brother had been struggling to do for almost an hour. He popped out of the snow-bank like a cork in a bottle.

"Thanks, sis, I was afraid of gettin' frostbite …" he murmured.

Ray always appreciated how her little brother didn't have an overblown ego like most males. He sure didn't mind a strong female saving his ass from time to time – or, in Ray-Ray's case, _all_ the time.

The two siblings strolled towards the lakeshore. They began speaking in their "special" language.

Uncle Hank had told the children about a time when people on Earth spoke different languages. They'd made a great deal of fuss about them too in the same way humans once made a big deal about something as trivial as skin color. That notion of judging someone based on their skin seemed downright ridiculous to Ray and her cousins – laughable even.

Things were better now, Ray thought. All people, as far as she knew, spoke the same language – unless you counted telepathic communication, but so many people could do that too it was hardly novel.

Ray and Oli, however, spoke a language only they could understand. Oli had learned it from his sister, but Ray had no idea how she learned it. Someone had had to teach it to her, right? But she couldn't remember how or from whom she'd come to understand it.

It was so strange … when she tried to remember learning the beautiful exotic words, all she could recall in her memory were vivid snake-eyes like Oli's, but these were red-on-black eyes. Not Olivier's eyes. They belonged to someone else. Someone from Ray's past that she couldn't quite remember.

It made her feel pensive and melancholy ...

Well, more than the usual.

She was glad she knew this strange language, however. It was a great way to communicate with her brother without their Mama knowing what they were talking about.

Ray lived in a world of nosy people and was always coming up with ingenious ways to get around them.

" _J'aurais aime extrasensoriel perception_ ," Ray murmured wistfully.

" _Pourquoi_?" Oli replied, arching an eyebrow. " _Lecture des pensees_?"

" _Oui, le mien_ …" she sighed.

On the rare occasion she spoke, Ray sometimes said very strange things. Oli was used to it. He usually took it like water off a duck's back, but it did make him wonder about his sister …

He bumped his sister's shoulder to try to jolly her. " _Laissez-nous nourrir les p'tits oiseaux_ ," he suggested cheerfully.

Ray frowned and pointed in the lake's direction. " _Combien de pain pourrait manger cet oiseau?"_

A massive fiery bird was rising over the lake, spreading its flaming wings over the waters. Olivier knew instantly it wasn't Rachel. He'd seen Rach call on the Phoenix Force since he could remember. This one looked … different. An instant later, he spotted Jeanie at its center like a vivid beating heart. Oli had only absorbed this shocking information when he saw another figure engulfed in the Phoenix's flames –

" ** _MEG_**!" Ruby screamed at her sister, racing past them, her puppy tucked under her arm.


	23. Phoenix Fire

**Hola, amigos! These characters belong to Marvel, except for Simon and Hecktor Alvers. I hope you enjoy this chapter. I had a ton of fun writing it!**

 **Please read & review! I really want to hear your feedback. Please leave your comments!**

 **\- Cheers, Maria**

 ** _Chapter XXIII: Phoenix Fire_**

Everything was happening at once. Scott and Emma were rushing towards the lake from (what remained of) the boathouse. Rogue and Rachel were flying in the direction of Jeanie and Megan. As Oli and Ray stared uselessly, Ruby was pelting towards her sister, ready to fight.

Meg tried to pull away from her best friend in revulsion. "Y-You used me?!" she stated, barely believing someone would do what Jeanie had done. "You forced me inside your mind to release you from your psychic dampers!"

 _I had to, Meggie,_ Jeanie's psychic "voice" rang in Meg's head. She did sound genuinely apologetic, but that didn't excuse what the redhead had done. _I am truly sorry, but it's for Jonathan. Now come along with me to the Astral Plane!_

"Forget it!" Meg spat at her friend. She felt horribly betrayed, sickened. She felt rage pulsing inside her gut like she had never experienced before. Was this … _hate_ ? she wondered.

 _You're coming with me, Meg. Don't forget you promised!_ Jeanie replied telepathically. She projected the image of Megan stirring up Jeanie's Phoenix fire inside the girl's suppressed memory. _You WANTED to, Meggie._ _Besides you're coming whether you want to or not. I can make you now!_

"The hell you will! You tricked me!" Meg snarled, her white-blond hair swirling around her like a tornado. The girls were engulfed in the flames of a fiery bird that hovered around them in a flaming aura. As Meg's anger built, however, to a breaking point, the bird split into two parts – two fiery raptors screaming and clawing at one another with their talons. Meg was so furious at Jeanie – and so intent on teaching her a lesson about breeching her psyche – that she didn't stop to consider one of the Phoenix's was being generated by _her_ .

Emma did, however. The tall beautiful telepath paused on the lakeshore, breathlessly watching her daughter and step-granddaughter do battle in the sky above her. "Meg has it," Emma murmured in wonder to Scott. "The Phoenix Force … but how?" It was beyond comprehension to the White Queen.

Scott stared. He'd seen so many things in his life he thought were impossible; watching his daughter and granddaughter do aerial battle with dueling psychic fire-birds, however, was definitely up there on the list. It wouldn't have so shocked the seasoned leader of the X-Men if one of those Phoenix's didn't belong to his little Meggie.

"It's just impossible …" he replied, barely above a whisper. Emma wouldn't have heard him anyway. The fighting birds were creating a vacuum, sucking debris towards the cyclone they were creating over the lake. Emma's blond hair was flying around her and the other kids – that is Oli, Ray and Ruby – looked to be clinging to the Earth – to trees, boulders, anything – for dear life. Scott knew he had to react; he had to take charge. The Phoenix Force would grow so powerful it would lay waste to everything on campus like the wake of a hurricane.

Still, he spared a moment to murmur in absolute awe of Meg: "How can she? Jeanie … yes." Though even a hardened veteran like Cyclops wouldn't have guessed his sixteen-year-old granddaughter would manifest her grandmother's power this early in her life. "But Meg? She isn't Jean's descendent," Scott thought, feeling the dull ache in his heart that had become so familiar to him over the years. The pain was raw sadness tempered over time to a dull pang that stabbed at his chest whenever his memories flashed back to his deceased first love, wife and teammate: Jean Grey.

"Jean …" Cyclops whispered, gazing up at the astounding Phoenix Force that was her legacy. A single tear slithered down his cheek.

Jeanie's Phoenix seemed stronger, however, tearing at Megan's with its fiery beak. But Megan's fought back with a fury as the girls locked eyes in a battle of wills. The very air vibrated as Emma launched a telepathic attack on the girls to quell their fight. The White Queen's power would have immediately rendered a target unconscious, usually, but Jeanie turned her glowing eyes on her step-grandmother and raised a psionic shield that ricocheted Emma's powerful psychic burst.

Emma fell to her knees, clutching her head in agonizing pain.

Meg fury doubled. _No one messes with my mom_! she thought ferociously. "How could you do that, Jeanie?!" she demanded. Her outrage mingled with utter astonishment. Meg had never, never witnessed another person – telepath or otherwise – threaten the White Queen.

 _This is easy after I invaded Emma's mind to find where Jon is being held prisoner,_ Jeanie confessed.

Meg could only stare in horror; it was just as Jeanie planned. She saw her friend's defenses drop and lashed out at Megan with full force. Meg's fire-bird dwindled to a flicker as she dropped like a stone towards the icy lake waters. Ruby gathered her full strength and levitated over the water to catch her sister.

Rachel, speeding towards the scene, traded an astonished glance at her father as she flew over Cyclops. Their identically amazed looks said: _Did you see that too?!_

 _Well, you got your wish, Rube_ , Rachel thought as she barreled towards her daughter. Like her dad, Rachel tried to cope with catastrophic situations by focusing on light or humorous details. Her redheaded temper, however, was getting the very best of her right now. It was something Rach had learned to curtail over time as co-leader of the X-Men, but seeing her own daughter behaving in this way – attacking Emma and controlling Meg – made the beast inside Phoenix roar.

Rachel sent a telepathic message out to all her teammates: _To me, my X-Men_! before the Phoenix Force inside Rachel spread its wings around her and let out a horrifying shriek that shattered glass in every direction.

Jeanie's glowing eyes locked on her mother's and, for a moment, the girl's resolve seemed to waver. Laura's stringent discipline and short temper were a matter of course for Jeanie. When the girl saw Rachel's full ferocious anger aimed at _her_ , however, it was truly terrifying.

"Dream Jeanie _Richards_!" Rachel bellowed in not one, but the many, many voices of the Phoenix Force.

"Oops, three names!" Ruby shouted over the fray, holding Meg in her arms as she struggled to stay aloft in the winds created by the gigantic fire-birds generated by Rachel and Jeanie.

His daughter looked so frightened, Scott thought, her curls swirling around her head in a dark-gold cloud, but Ruby also looked determined like she wasn't going to fold under pressure. Cyclops had noticed a change in Ruby lately since she'd started sneaking off. He didn't approve of her disobedience, of course, but he also knew Rachel understood what Ruby was up to – so he felt better (not good, but _better_ ) than he would have if his eldest daughter wasn't aware of what Ruby was up to. Scott trusted Rachel explicitly with her half-sisters, so he didn't worry _as much_ as he would have if she didn't.

But Ruby had changed. She had always been driven and ambitious, but Cyclops had noticed Ruby training harder than ever before. She had only trained on Level One in the Danger Room since she'd turned thirteen and never on a DR team, but Scott hadn't missed the precision his little girl had been employing lately … it wasn't a skill she would hone on DR Level One.

And then there was Ruby's telekinesis … that was new.

"Why is having children so complicated?" Cyclops wondered aloud.

"Now is not the time for a midlife crisis, dear," Emma gasped, on the ground. The White Queen's breathing was labored as Scott knelt beside her; she seemed more strained than Scott had ever seen his lover before – even during her dangerous pregnancy with Ruby. "My God, she's more powerful than I ever imagined …" Emma said. The White Queen had a reputation for being sardonic and cynical, so the note of awe in her tone was certainly not without warrant, Scott knew. She was shouting, but in the whirlwind created by the multiple Phoenix Forces, her voice sounded like a mere murmur.

"Which one? Jeanie or Meg?" Scott replied, only half-joking. "Or Ruby?"

Emma smirked even as she struggled to psychically recover from Jeanie's attack. Typical Scott. There were times she wondered if his twisted "sense of humor" was what kept the man some semblance of sanity.

 _Lead the X-Men in damage control_ , Rachel ordered telepathically to Emma. _Leave Jeanie to me, OK?_

Emma's pride bristled like a wounded animal. Was this the point where she conceded her reign as superior telepath? It didn't matter now … Rachel was a leader and she had given an order. She must think about Jeanie – the girl admitted to attacking Emma! – later. Right now, she and Scott must protect their family.

Rachel soared straight at her daughter; her Phoenix screamed like an angry hawk. Her message was clear: _BACK DOWN!_ Any opposition would make Rachel stop her daughter by force. Jeanie seemed to hesitate for an instant. The X-Men rushing on the scene from the School as well as the ones already present and their children seemed to collectively hold their breath.

Then Jeanie's curtains of red hair fanned around her majestically, beating the air in time with her fire-bird's wings. At one with the Phoenix, Jeanie rushed to meet her mom in battle. The fire-birds collided. At first, Rachel's seemed to absorb Jeanie's Phoenix, but then, no, Jeanie's raptor reared up its great crest, shrieking in a voice that made everyone on the ground grab their ears. Jeanie's Phoenix linked its talons with Rachel's claws and the fight began.

Bound together by their claws the fiery raptors dropped into a dive, spinning with their wings spread as Rachel's blue eyes locked on her daughter's own sapphire gaze in a battle of pure will. The Phoenix's sped towards the lake, creating a powerful cyclone of fire, until even their bird-like features blurred into a tornado of sheer cosmic energy. House siding, shingles, bricks, branches, then trees and rocks flew up from the ground towards the vacuum the dueling fire-birds created. Even the surrounding mountains began to tremble – they would be the next casualties.

Rogue was using every scrap of her super-strength to pin Emma and Scott to the Earth. Ray was doing the same for her brother as one hand tethered the floating Summers sisters like a balloon. A boulder the size of their house raced thru the air; Scott shattered it with his eye-beams. Ruby incinerated another massive rock hurtling towards them.

"Jeanie won't give in!" Emma cried. "I have to help Rachel shut her down!"

"Forget it!" Scott replied fiercely.

Emma's nostrils dilated in rage; she was done with people telling her what to do. "With two telepaths against her, we will beat her!"

"Touch them, Emma, and it could do harm to your unborn children!" Hank yelled, holding onto a rope he had thrown to Ray; he clung to it as he staggered towards the group like he was fighting his way thru a blizzard. Emma had no idea how Hank knew. He just knew. What infuriated Emma more was nobody else looked very surprised at this revelation.

Rachel … that nosy little bitch.

"It's a psychic fire duel," Hank added. "Interfering would be like walking into an inferno." Beast had a pizza box tucked under his arm. "I brought pizza!" he said. Ray held Oli down with one foot, grabbed the box with her free hand, opened it, devoured the pizza whole and then ate the box.

Meg, beginning to come around, gazed at Ray in wonderment. "D-Did you just eat the _box_?" she said weakly.

"The crust is my favorite part," Ray answered.

"My sister's a weird kid," Oli explained from the ground. Glancing at Meg, he mouthed the words: " _Like seriously, who eats the crusts_?"

At his words, a whole mountainside overshadowing the lake collapsed.

"The mountains are going!" Cyclops cried. "Rogue, take point. Kymri, Stefan, take care of the little ones."

" _Little_?!" Ruby said, blasting another boulder sailing their way. "I have telekinetic powers now, remember?"

"Do not talk back to your father!" Emma snapped as Kymri, alongside Stefan, teleported to Ruby's side, ready to take the children to the School sublevels and safety. "You want to be an X-Man; learn to take orders first!"

Emma was deeply disturbed that she didn't know where her daughter was sneaking off to, but after Rachel's "very special talk" with her half-sister, Emma sensed they had come to some sort of resolution over Ruby's recent behavior.

Ruby turned on her Mamma, her temper boiling over. Was Emma blind? Hadn't her mother just witnessed what Ruby had done? "You are such a hypocrite!" Ruby snarled. "You don't want to take orders from Dad or from Rach even though they're your leaders! You don't care about our little sisters! You don't care about anything but yourself and how powerful _you can be_! You're always goading us to be stronger, better, but in battle we're shuffled off like children?"

"Ruby, shut it!" Meg snapped angrily at her sister, sounding so much like Emma that everyone did a double-take in her direction. "Mom is looking out for everyone – even that traitorous little bitch, Jeanie, so stop being such a selfish little twat like you've been for the past four weeks and listen for once!"

Everyone – except for Rachel and Jeanie, of course – actually stopped what they doing in the middle of this psychic hurricane and stared at the sisters. Kymri and Stefan actually took a step back. Meg's face reddened. She had absolutely no idea what "twat" meant, but Jeanie had taught her the word. Jeanie had learned it from Laura, so Meg guessed it wasn't very nice to say. Everyone's wide-eyed appalled expressions seemed to confirm that.

Half the side of the mountain came hurtling down on the crowd – or it would have if Ray hadn't caught it. Straining under the tons of weight, the girl tossed it away into the lake, causing the second tidal-wave in the Summers' front yard in a day – a new record.

Rogue, shin-deep in water, gazed in wonder at her daughter. "Now, that's _my_ girl …" she said with a rare note of pride in her voice. She shot Emma a smug look that said: _My child would never do anything like yours just did._

Emma practically hissed at her daughters. "If we survive this, you two are grounded until you're thirty!"

 _Like that would make any difference from the state of things now_ … Ruby "thought" very loudly, glaring at her mom from behind her dark shades.

Simon Alvers inserted himself very bravely into the situation, Megan thought, probably to prevent an infanticide and said urgently: "There will be plenty of time for grounding if we aren't literally grounded first!" Because, for reasons Meg did not know, heroes apparently loved to trade quips during battle – perhaps it helped give precious levity to dire circumstances.

Kymri, as the youngest member of the X-Men, was eager to see battle, but she was regulated to teleport the kids away to safety – including even Ruby and Ray.

"Not today, kids, not now," Cyclops said calmly, but in that tone that left no room for argument. Emma was scary, but arguing a point with the leader of the X-Men was inconceivable to any of the children.

"You did real good, sugah," Rogue said, with a rare tender caress on her daughter's cheek. "Go now; yah the oldest. Protect the other young 'uns – specially yah brother."

Ray gazed wistfully at her mother as if wanting more, as if desperately wanting to say something to her fierce Tiger Mamma, but Rogue turned back to the battlefield; there was work to do.

Emma glared at her husband as Beast held onto her wrist to keep her from being swept away by the psychic fire-tornado Rachel and Jeanie had created, but Ruby had thrown it up in her face the current circumstances before them.

She was the White Queen and she wouldn't concede her reign as supreme psychic so easily - to Rachel or Jeanie or otherwise. Yes, Emma had learned thru her tenure with the X-Men and other circumstances that a defeat in battle didn't mean losing the war and that, sometimes, a truly great warrior must live to fight another day. And, after all, Scott, Hank, Rachel, Ruby and everyone else was right: Emma could fight to the death by rights, though she was confident that she could take out Jeanie before the situation came to that. The little bitch didn't have the element of surprise on her side now.

But her little unborn twins hadn't chosen this warrior's life, any more than Meg or Ruby had, as their mother had.

However, she didn't have to like it ... or like to admit it. Being an inferior telepath (even for a moment) or being wrong. Both were deplorable.

"We are _not_ done talking about this!" she hissed. "Any of this!" Her icy stare encompassed everyone - children and adults alike. " _Any_ of us!"

 _Why the hell is she pissed at US?_ Kymri's very loud thoughts blared in her mind.

Scott shrugged, giving his wife a weary expression - Emma sometimes wondered if her husband was even capable of _fear_ at this point in his career? Self-preservation? Yes, possibly. But bewilderment in the face of bizarre circumstances?

Hell, no. Scott Summers had just seen too damn much in his lifetime, on and off the battlefield.

 _ **###**_

Simon Alvers and his twin, Hecktor, flanked Cyclops as the brothers got to work calming the Earth. It was so strange, Scott always thought, as the twin brothers got further apart physically, Hecktor became agitated, impatient and quick to anger. Alongside his twin, Hecktor was a lamb. In fact, the brothers worked so seamlessly together, putting the mountains back together using their sheer seismic power, that they almost seemed like one being.

Scott had seen co-dependent powers before in siblings, but with Hecktor and Simon Alvers it was especially odd. Their powers were connected almost directly to their emotions (which wasn't exactly unusual as far as mutants went), but Tremor had always been a rather timid fighter. He had a bad habit of panicking during battle. Cyclops witnessed it now, as Simon grew more frustrated at the cosmic damage the Phoenix Forces were wrecking, Hecktor (usually the more temperamental of the two) soothed his twin with calming words, gestures and, Scott guessed, a rapport of some sort the brothers always seemed to share.

Nothing agitated gentle Simon more than witnessing the destruction of combat, but nothing calmed him quite like Heck. Beast had likened their powers to the Earth itself ... the same way tectonic plates were constantly moving and changing while remaining serene and still. The brothers' relationship in combat was similar to their relationship as civilians - but in reverse roles. In their "daily" lives, Simon was the one constantly keeping the hotheaded Hecktor in check.

Their strange dynamic never failed to remind Cyclops of the twins' father, Lance Alvers, the mutant known as Avalanche who was an old enemy of the X-Men's stoic leader. Scott regarded Avalanche as an almost impossible case, he was so rebellious and unpredictable, spurning almost any attempt at controlling his colossal seismic abilities.

Cyclops could never imagine Alvers on any long-term team, let alone the X-Men. But twenty years ago, when the twins' mother, a human woman named Lily, surrendered Lance's children to the Jean Grey School, Scott, an orphan himself, never thought twice about taking in the boys to raise. Scott recognized a calm logical presence in Simon almost immediately and the eldest twin grew into an invaluable asset to the School and eventually the X-Men.

And Hecktor ... Well, Heck still had a ways to go. The kid still had major anger and emotional issues, but he had gradually progressed in controlling them (and, therefore, his powers) as time passed. And, of course, his even greater, in some ways, ability to cajole Simon during combat was a big asset to the X-Men.

It was under recommendation of Scott, who the Alvers twins regarded very much as a father figure having never known Lance, to Rachel that Hecktor join the team alongside his brother.

The quivering landscape began to still, and the surrounding mountains gradually reconstructed, as the brothers worked their seismic push-and-pull sway over the Earth.

"All good, Slim," Hecktor said to his leader a slight smile playing on his lips. Few people nowadays called Cyclops by the nickname he'd been given as a teenager, but the Alvers brothers did. They'd picked it up from Beast when they were little kids.

Scott regarded the twins with secret pride. He'd never raised a biological son and he admired the boys he'd played such a large role in bringing up though he didn't openly praise them - as a rule, stern Cyclops didn't anyone - but he would be the first to recommend both Tremor and Richter to Rachel who understandably had her doubts about Heck.

Cyclops turned his attention from his surrogate children back to his biological one as Rachel and Jeanie's Phoenix Forces came hurtling towards the Earth.

 _ **###**_

The two Phoenix's, claws interlocked, plummeted, spinning wildly out of control. Their battle was a sheer test of willpower. Which would give in first? Mother or daughter? Jean Grey's child or the daughter of Franklin Richards? Rachel had hard-won experience on her side, but Jeanie was the offspring of one of the most supreme beings in this or any universe. The girl was just beginning to realize that. She had struck down Emma Frost; Rachel was doing all she could to control her. God, it reminded Rachel of when the girl's father had first realized he could do anything, go anywhere – rules and laws did not apply to Franklin Richards.

… And Jeanie Richards was the daughter of the two most powerful beings to ever exist.

Driven by the sheer desire to save her brother, only those strong enough to force their will on her could stop Jeanie. And, right now, that alone was her mother.

The two Phoenix's were twirling so wildly now that the fire-birds almost merged into one being. As they did, Rachel and Jeanie seemed to merge too into one gigantically powerful consciousness. _God, she's absorbing my life-force!_ Rachel thought. Or was Rach absorbing Jeanie's consciousness? Or were they fusing into one being?

 _It's me, Mama_ , Jeanie's "voice" rang in Rachel's head. _I am the superior._

Her telepathic statement was tinged with wonder, not arrogance. Again, so much like her father, Rachel thought. When she and Frankie were children, he was constantly in awe of what he could do with his almost incomprehensible powers. He used them to play games with his mute, reclusive little friend Rachel, to amuse her and keep her sane. It was part of what Rachel loved about her best friend and the father of her children – even at his most powerful Frankie Richards had a humility and awe about his abilities, like a little child discovering something new, a clever trick to make his pretty little girlfriend smile.

Rachel fought to stay conscious as she and Jeanie approached the Earth. She wondered how they could pull out of this free-fall … and what damage they could do if they didn't. Their dive alone would make a crater where the lake had been. She knew Cyclops and Emma had ordered the children down to the sublevels under the School. Even a fire-tornado couldn't harm them there.

But the collateral damage would be more than Rachel could comprehend. _Jeanie, please, stand down_! Rach psychically pleaded with her daughter; struggling for consciousness, it was the only thing she could think to do. _If not for me, please think of your cousins._

 _I have, Mama. I've tortured myself over it, but I've made my decision … and I chose Jonathan._

In the midst of the battle, Rachel reached out to stroke the cheek of her beloved firstborn child. The anger and exasperation she felt towards her daughter was greater than the temperamental Phoenix had ever experienced, but there was something else, another emotion flickering in Rachel's heart – _pride_.

Though Rachel had barely known her mother Jean Grey in this life, she thought Dr. Grey's headstrong granddaughter was a fitting testament to the willful warrior who helped found the X-Men.

Jeanie just wouldn't back down.

Rachel closed her eyes as she sent out a final plea to her daughter: _How do you know for certain you even stand a chance against Apocalypse? The X-Men only imprisoned him at great cost to their numbers, Jeanie._

 _I'm not going to contain Apocalypse; I'm going to vanquish him!_ Jeanie said, her eyes burning with fury. _And I know I can do it because I'm stronger than Meg. I'm stronger than Emma. And … I'm stronger than YOU!_

Jeanie fired the most powerful psionic burst Rachel had ever witnessed at her mother. It struck Rachel, moments before they hit the ground, and flung Phoenix free of the fiery spiral mother and daughter had created.

 _ **###**_

Rachel regained consciousness gasping with sobs, her uniform clinging to her body in rags. Cyclops hovered over his daughter as the twins, Simon and Hecktor Alvers, looked on in bewilderment at the destruction the Phoenix Forces - Rachel and Jeanie - had caused. An enormous crater spanned the area where the serene lake used to be. Charred trees stood stark and black alongside its rim like burst corpses. The snow had all been melted away, leaving black bare ground in its place.

The wreckage was awful, the worst kids like the Alvers brothers had ever seen … but Rachel could only sob harder when she thought what was to come. This scenario would only seem like a bump in the road compared to Apocalypse's imminent return.

"Dad …" Rachel rasped, her throat dry and parched, barely allowing her to speak. "I couldn't stop her." And Phoenix buried her face in her father's shoulder and wept.


	24. Decisions, Decisions

**More teen angst! Haha I promise the next chapters will be more lighthearted and fun.**

 **Now, on to kudos. To Ogygian Springs - thank you SO MUCH for the kind words of encouragement. They are very much appreciated. Yes, Emma Frost is a character a lot of people are on the fence about, but I do like her character as I always have. Just as I love Jean Grey's character. Also, you will be happy to know that the next few chapters are going to focus specifically on Angel/Archangel and his family! And, yes, this story is weird, but I love writing weird and bizarre. The comment you made about this story being weird like comics are weird made me so happy. Thanks again!**

 **These characters belong to Marvel, not me. Meg is reading Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder by the way. I adore that book and The Little House on the Prairie book series. You should read it too!**

 **A bit stronger language in this chapter than in the previous ones, so just a warning.**

 **Now, on to the story!**

 **Cheers, Maria**

 _ **Chapter XXIV: Decisions, Decisions**_

Ruby paced around like a caged animal in the School sub-levels, tension and agitation in every gesture and movement she made.

Megan Summers, her sister, was dealing with this situation the way she usually did with difficult ones: she had her freckled nose in a book - _deep_ in a book. Meg wanted to space out for awhile and escape to a fictional character's circumstances and relatively mundane problems. Right now, Meg was reading about Laura churning butter.

That was one reason Meg _loved_ books - specifically books about pioneer life in the Western Hemisphere during the nineteenth century. No drama. At least, no drama that directly affected Megan's life. Her book's heroine, Laura, dealt with drama, but it involved dysentery and possible starvation. No alternate dimensional travel or psychic powers.

Yes, churning butter sounded very serene and calming right about now ...

Ruby huffed and glared, pacing angrily before her sister. There was a bad family joke that Ruby had "looks that could kill" she had inherited from her father, but that was true both literally and figuratively. For all her boisterousness, Ruby rarely got truly angry. But when she did ... ho, boy ...

Meg believed her little sis could burn a hole in an offender _without_ her concussive eye-beams. Right now, Ruby was angrier than she had ever been in her entire life. And, currently, Ruby's force-beam generating eyes were trained on her sibling.

Meg sighed in angry exasperation as her sister tried to get her attention in the same passive-aggressive manner Ruby always used when the sisters quarreled.

"Hmmmph ..." Ruby hummed in an agitated tone in her sister's direction.

Meg didn't have her dad's eyes, but she had Emma Frost's and that glare was _almost_ as bad to have directed at you.

Currently, Meg was trying to burn a hole in the page of her book by staring at it as she _concentrated_ on ignoring her sister, no mean feat.

" _HmmmPmmmph_!" Ruby growled, grinding the heel of her foot into the floor.

"Stoppit …" Meg rumbled back, giving her sister a warning glance.

"Stop what?" Ruby replied innocently, but still glaring at Megan from behind her dark glasses, trying to goad her generally demure sister into a fight. This is the way the most memorable battles between the Summers girls started – by Ruby annoying Meg with absolutely "nothing."

"Stop. That." Meg's voice was a mere hiss, her blue eyes slits of anger.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Ruby sniffed imperiously.

"You know …"

"I don't."

"Yes. You. _DO_ …" Meg's eyes began to glow the same way Rachel's did when she became agitated. Ruby actually took a step back.

 _Rub-EE GRACE!_ Emma's psychic message rang thru Ruby's head like a verbal shout.

The tall girl spun around, her wild curls whipping her cheeks, to face her mother. None of her anger at being bundled away like a bothersome child during the battle with Jeanie had abated, but she was thinking more clearly now and what Ruby had said to her formidable mother in the heat of the moment … she was thinking twice about repeating those words.

Emma Frost stood at almost eye-level with her no-longer-youngest child. At the rate Ruby was growing, she would be taller than her mom next Winter Break; Emma wearily wondered if they would all survive that long.

Ruby really, really wanted to shout at her mother and possibly blow up something. _What's the use of keeping these thoughts inside_? she wondered. Her mom could read her thoughts like a book – except her thoughts about the Astral Plane; those were Ruby's alone. In the smoldering pit of her anger, that was a spark of satisfaction.

Emma, of course, clearly knew how her daughter was feeling – even her feelings of smug triumph in the face of her mom's almost omnipotent telepathy, which irked Emma more than anything had in a long time. It was like a large blank space on the colorful canvas of her daughter's always very legible mind.

Oddly enough, Ruby's mental elusiveness reminded the White Queen of _someone else_ that always spurned her great telepathic powers – Jean Grey. In fact, there were just too many parallels between her daughters' recent behavior and their late stepmother to make Emma comfortable.

It just didn't add up. Meg's manifestation of the Phoenix Force. Ruby's newfound telekinesis. Yes, the girls were half-sisters to Rachel Grey-Summers, but those traits were passed down directly thru Jean Grey's line and Meg and Ruby had no relation to the belated psychic.

 _What the hell was happening?_

It was like Emma's longtime rival was still haunting her long after her death. Emma still felt a great deal of insecurity concerning Jean Grey. She felt forever in her shadow. Jean was the superior telepath, the School's namesake, founding member of the X-Men, Rachel's beloved mother … and Scott's first love.

Though her husband and family were constantly reinforcing their love and value of the White Queen, Emma knew she had always been Dr. Grey's second and Emma was not satisfied until she was second to none.

Emma had a sudden feeling akin to bubbles popping in her lower abdomen. She was startled. Not by the feeling itself; she knew what it was. She had felt the gentle fluttering feeling when she'd carried Meg and Ruby (though with Ruby it felt more like she was carrying a professional mixed martial artist in her belly). But she had never felt the stirrings of her unborn children this early on in a pregnancy. Emma suddenly wondered if any woman had – she must think to ask Rogue. Rogue had a huge clan of five children and, despite what Emma considered frankly reckless behavior during her pregnancies, Marie had carried each and every one of them to term.

Rogue's powers, however, made her near invulnerable; Emma's did not. Even in her diamond form, when her skin turned into a bioorganic form of the almost indestructible gemstone, Emma could be affected by a psychic attack. Scott and Rachel would never allow her on the battlefield while she carried his daughters and her half-sisters respectively. It made the White Queen feel frustrated and, strangely enough, sympathetic to her most wayward child.

"Ruby, I know how you are feeling …" Emma murmured in a tone that was more weary and sad than exasperated and angry as she gently stroked her young daughter's cheek. Ruby, her bioorganic ruby-quartz skin as hard as her mother's diamond form, indignantly shrugged off Emma's caress.

"Of course you do – you're a telepath," Ruby muttered insolently, an offense that carried with it consequences, but Ruby no longer cared if her Mamma punished her anymore.

"That's not what I mean," Emma explained, her usually brisk tone patient and soft now.

She suddenly remembered holding Ruby for the first time all those long fourteen years ago. After a grueling, intensive and dangerous delivery, Hank laid the squalling ruby-quartz-skinned infant in her arms, her eyes taped shut to contain the concussive beams Ruby had generated from the moment of her birth.

"I mean … I know firsthand about feeling useless in the face of danger, being considered a welfare case, a liability, when your loved ones are out there fighting against the odds." Emma sighed. "And you know you have the power to stand and fight with them but you can't. You won't. They won't let you."

Ruby's defiant stance wavered. Her fists unclenched. And, thankfully, Meg seemed to power down. At least her eyes were no longer glowing – another new trait in her precocious offspring, Emma thought wearily.

But anger still radiated off Ruby's mind in invisible waves. In fact, she was madder now than she had been. She, damn the consequences, wanted to (verbally) give her mom a good piece of her mind, but instead of confronting her and providing the girl with an outlet for her anger, Emma had completely disarmed her daughter. Because she was experiencing almost exactly the same frustration her child felt. Ruby's mother had robbed her of ammunition and it made the girl feel even more impotent and weak.

At least she could _do_ something with her anger.

And after all that talk Rachel gave her about being a warrior … what good was any of it if nobody would let her fight? Fists clenched again, the girl pushed past Emma, stomping in the direction of the Danger Room. She seriously needed to blow off some steam; Meg jumped up to go after her sister, but Emma made a gesture for her to sit down.

Her mom must have been extremely exhausted if she was relying on non-telepathic communication, especially hand signals, Megan thought. Emma _was_ very pale. With the exception of rabbit kittens, which were born with such frequency and efficiency their creation could barely be called a process, Meg didn't know much about babies and, like many people ignorant of that subject, she had the very wrong-headed notion that pregnant women were made of glass because they were adults sheltered from battle.

Meg went to take her mother's hand, worry bubbling up in her mind, afraid the White Queen would start bleeding out or … maybe, spontaneously combust? Oli had told her stories … Of course, he was probably teasing, but he said Auntie Marie knew a pregnant woman who had …

"Mamma?" Meg hadn't used that term to address her mom since she was, like, three, but now everything was so messed up and Megan was so, so scared. She was ashamed, yes. She was too old to feel that way, but right now she really, really wanted her Mamma to wrap her up in her arms, the same way she used to do when Meggie was small and she was afraid of thunderstorms, and make all the badness just go away. "I-I mean, Mom?" she stammered, knowing her desires were very apparent to Emma and feeling more embarrassed than ever.

The White Queen suddenly pulled her eldest child into a tight embrace, startling Meg. Emma loved her girls, but she wasn't a hugger. Right now, however, she felt everything that was important to her – her position as the most superior telepath, her role in the X-Men, her daughter Ruby – slipping thru her fingers like sand. She wanted to hold onto something, someone.

Thru the window of Emma's elbow, choking Meg in a vise-like grip, the girl spotted Mattie Jones looking on with wide green eyes; her hand was draped protectively (and Meg thought subconsciously) over her still-flat belly. Meg narrowed her own blue gaze threateningly at Firestar who promptly blushed and turned away. Of course, Mattie wouldn't be allowed into battle either since she was going to have Toad's baby. (Ray, who seemed to know everything about everyone, had told Megan that.) But she was still just Mattie in Meg's opinion;

Emma was the Friggin' White Queen.

 _ **###**_

Ruby stomped as hard as she could towards the Danger Room. She must have looked a fright because no one challenged her. Kymri's yellow eyes followed the girl as she stalked past the woman, but she made no attempt to stop Ruby. The School Danger Room would detect Ruby's presence, as the holographic arena did all the School's students, and the DR's autopilot setting would only allow her to train on Level One blasting stationary targets with her optic beams.

Kymri would keep an eye on her as well. "Trust me; I don't like this any more than you do, girlie," the blue woman murmured as Ruby prowled by. As angry as she felt, Ruby couldn't help but spare some sympathy for the 19-year-old X-Man. Capricorn was primed to fight on the battlefield above them; she resented her lot here.

And babysitting hotheaded kids and pregnant, but insanely proud and powerful, women - all desiring to stand in battle - wasn't exactly enviable.

Kymri was the only functioning member of the X-Men in the sub-levels. She had been left to guard the children as well as Mattie and Emma which Ruby knew must be killing Firestar and the proud White Queen especially. But pregnant women weren't ever allowed to fight because of the babies in their tummies. _Gifted_ women, especially seasoned fighters like Emma and Mattie, were powerful warriors, but their unborn children were helpless.

Or at least that was the way it was supposed to be, Ruby thought, grinding her teeth. Her mom would have fought anyway and put Ruby's baby sisters in danger!

Ruby stepped up to the DR entrance. " **OPEN**!" she shouted at it and then kicked the automatic doors until her foot hurt, even though the DR security tech psychically scanned and identified people before allowing them inside. The Danger Room doors slid open with a swish and Ruby stepped inside, her hand creeping up to the side of her visor, the same way her dad's did during a confrontation. She tensed up, sliding easily into a cat-like stealthy position she had honed during practice sessions on the Astral Plane.

Oh, she was good and ready to blow something up ...

"GOOO!" she screamed at the holo-arena.

However, where she expected dull stationary targets to pop up for her to disintegrate like usual, Ruby Summers got a surprise.

Her sister Meg was standing in front of her, blue eyes pleading. "Ruby ..." she whispered imploringly.

"Get out of my _way_!" Ruby screamed. Of course, this was imaginary. It was just a hologram. The older kids at the School had told her about this - the way the more advanced sessions of Danger Room training would try to mess with your head, putting holographic images of friends and family in your path, to see if you would break down psychologically during the heat of battle.

The holographic program obviously didn't know Ruby Summers, she mused smolderingly. The girl didn't spare a thought as to why the DR had programmed this very bizarre and potentially traumatic scenario for a novice fighter like Ruby. She was just too damn angry. Blowing a fake visage of her oh-so-perfect-sister to bits without any repercussions was exactly what Ruby _wanted_ to do right now. She blasted holo-Meg apart with her concussive beams.

Ruby panted with satisfaction, smirking somewhat, until she saw her dad's form appear in the haze from Ruby's blast. He seemed to be gazing sadly at his young daughter. She knew it wasn't real, but she still shouted savagely at Cyclops: "You don't want me to learn to fight! You don't want me to learn _anything_! You want to keep me in a bubble my entire life!"

Again, she let loose the full force of her optic beams on the hologram, blowing it completely away.

Now, a vision of Emma appeared, looking a specter in the vaporous gloom from Ruby's latest blast; her long white-blond hair seemed to float out around her in a halo. Anger made Ruby's vision sizzle, making everything around her waver like heat rising up from the ground.

"You want me to learn; you want me to fight! But only on your terms! As long as we're safe and secure and never venture out into the world; you're as horrible as Dad!" Ruby screamed at her mother. "But when the time comes, you just can't let me fight! Why can't you just _trust me_?!"

In a rage, Ruby slapped her hand to the side of her visor, preparing to let loose on the holographic image of Emma -

... _Waitahminute, I have baby sisters_? Ruby suddenly thought.

"Uh-huh. That's right, Ruby Grace Frost-Summers. You're about to be a big sis," a voice drawled behind her. "How's it feel ...?"

Ruby pivoted on her heel and saw Ray standing behind her. Ray - the girl had sneaked into the control room of the Danger Room. She had programmed the simulation Ruby had just witnessed. Ruby knew this because her LeBeau cousins were always doing this. Oli and Ray could not be detected psychically, so they could slip in and out of places they weren't supposed to go. Not even the School Danger Room, which was programmed specifically to recognize people's mental signatures, could scan them.

Usually Olivier, however, was the one playing these kind of jokes. This was a pretty sick joke, Ruby had to admit - forcing her to face down her family in open combat. No, they hadn't even fought back; and Ruby had been so blinded by rage, she had just incinerated them. She hadn't even thought about it really. It was just a handy outlet for her anger ... until she saw what appeared to be her pregnant Mamma.

Yeah, that was pretty messed up.

That kind of prank was even outside of Oli's usual range. Of the two LeBeau siblings, it shocked Ruby that it was the shy and reserved Ray pulling this one.

In fact, Ruby had always liked Ray a lot - well, compared to Oli who didn't even try to make people like him. And alongside Ray who was always blowing up buildings, Oli wasn't just not trying to make himself popular with other people (especially the grownups), he went out of his way to be a pain in the ass.

Ray just made messes because she couldn't help it. She was so clumsy and accident-prone. Ruby could relate. When they were little, and the kids got together, the two always were the odd ones out because Oli always teamed up with Jonathan to cause trouble and Meg and Jeanie were best little girlfriends.

Plus, Ray-Ray was the only one of the kids who could stand up to Ruby's rough-and-tumble games.

Now, Ruby gazed forlornly at her friend. Unlike her brother, who just seemed to enjoy messing with people, Ray rarely did anything intentionally without a deep and meaningful purpose. In the same way she rarely spoke if she did not have something very important to say. Oli used words like a craftsman; his sister used them like rations. Only using them when necessary ... or when she was hungry.

"You gotta granola bar?" Ray asked Ruby, rubbing the back of her neck.

"I-I think so ..." Ruby replied. She rooted around in her pocket and pulled out a peanut-butter-chip-craisin cookie. "Is a cookie OK?"

Ray responded by snatching it out of her hand and cramming the whole thing in her face. Ruby looked on in admiration; she didn't even chew.

Ray regarded her cousin with her very somber puppy-dog eyes as she swallowed. Ray could make you spill your guts by just staring at you with those huge soulful peepers. Ruby itched and squirmed around in her skin under her cousin's scrutinizing gaze.

Ray had come here, sneaked into the DR control room, was having this conversation (well, as much of a conversation as Ray could have with someone else) for a reason. She desperately was trying to get a point across to her wayward cousin.

"Why won't Mamma let me fight?! Is it because she doesn't trust me? Or because I'm not strong enough?" Ruby exploded in a blaze of defensiveness, her temper boiling over. Was Ray like the holographic images of Meg, Scott and Emma? Just an innocent target for Ruby's fury? Ruby suddenly felt awful about yelling at her quiet cousin. Ray, who could punch thru mountains, had every right to be mad at Ruby's outburst, but she just regarded the girl with the same grave serious big-eyed expression.

"It's because she loves you, Rube," Ray replied softly.

Ruby suddenly felt sick to her stomach. She had a very vague idea about Ray's life - the way Auntie Marie was constantly pushing her strength, both physical and emotional, to the limits, the way Rogue viewed her daughter more as a soldier than a child. It had never occurred to Ruby, however, that her favorite cousin could be in any way envious of Ruby's relationship with her own Mamma.

Ruby had no idea how she got there, but she was suddenly in Ray-Ray's arms. Her cousin embraced her as Ruby sobbed into her chest. Ray stroked Ruby's dark-gold curls as she wept, pouring her fierce heart out to this tall silent girl in a way she never had to anyone else ... not to Rachel, not to her parents, not even to Meg.

In the back of her mind, Ruby wondered if Ray was relishing this moment of release as much as her cousin was. Ruby knew Auntie Marie didn't hug her children. Not because she had a businesslike personality like Emma, but because she was afraid of making her kids weak.

"You got baby sisters now too ..." Ray continued in her gentle drawl. "You gotta look out for them too."

Ruby clenched her fists again. She strangely wasn't ashamed to cry in front of Ray-Ray, the way she had felt tearing up around Rachel. And her strange cousin had given her the resolve to do what she knew she had to do.

Ruby gazed up into Ray's simple face. Ray was probably going to be the only person who would be taller than Ruby when all the kids finally grew up.

The girl took a deep breath before she blurted out the stunning revelation: "Ray-Ray, I know how to get to the Astral Plane!"

"Yes, I know that," Ray replied calmly. "I heard Rach talking to you about it."

"Oh ..."

Well, of course Ray-Ray knew all about that ...

 _ **###**_

Meg was reading about Laura Ingalls milking a cow named Ellen. Oh yes, this was soothing, reading about rural agricultural lifestyle during the post-Civil War period in a place called the United States.

Olivier was trying to get Megan's attention which annoyed her. Damn, yes, she liked the boy - but couldn't he give her some fucking space?! Oh, hell, she hoped that frivolous thought hadn't slipped thru her mental barriers; Meg was never sure when her mother was "listening in" on her particularly "loud" thoughts and Meg had thought the word "fucking" pretty fucking loud. _Oh, shit, there I go again_ ... Megan thought. _Well ... fuck, shit, piss_ ... She might as well get it out of her system.

Emma was strict on her children about cursing, but Jeanie had learned all the best swear words from her Mama Laura and, of course, Jeanie had taught them all to Meg.

Speaking of Jeanie ... wasn't Oli so taken with the little redhead? Why was he even paying mind to Meggie at all? He was flirting so outrageously with Megan's best friend all afternoon (you know, before everything went completely to HELL). God, Meg thought, the only reason he wasn't above ground with his precious sweetheart was probably because the grownups ordered them all underground. Meg knew she was being petty, but _Jesus_. The boy wasn't even subtle about it.

OK, Jeanie was gorgeous. She got it. And tall and charismatic.

But you know what else she was? A traitor. And a bitch.

And that made Olivier a traitor by association as far as Meg was concerned.

Because Jeanie had used Megan's telepathic powers for her own gain (no matter how she justified that) and completely turned on the family and the X-Men and invaded Emma's mind and attacked Rachel and caused a psychic fire-tornado that laid waste to the boathouse and the School campus and devastated the entire landscape, the mountains and the forests.

And Oli was a total jackass for even considering her.

But none of Jeanie's utter betrayal and destruction mattered to Meg right now because everybody in the family had shipped Oli and Meg since they were babies and Meg, for the life of her, couldn't help but love the boy and the little cad had the nerve to go after her best friend like a horny cartoon wolf ...

And now he came crawling back to Meg expecting to be friends again like nothing at all had happened.

What a dick.

Well ... Meg had something to say to Young LeBeau.

But as she drew breath to tell him off Oli ran his hand thru his messy hair and sighed.

"Meggie, I coulda stopped her ..." he said miserably, his voice suddenly cracking. Meg had never seen her friend like this before. He looked nervous and withdrawn, plucking at his long white lock of hair that perpetually hung down over his eyes. Smooth-talking, charming Olivier, Meg had known him her entire life, but she felt she was seeing him for the very first time. And what she saw was a sad helpless little boy as bewildered and confused as any of them.

Meg's extreme empathy kicked her in the guts - hard. She suddenly forgot about the tongue-lashing she was going to enjoy giving this guy.

"Oli, no, no," she begged, slamming her book down face-first. "Y-You couldn't have. There was no way. Y-You did everything you could!"

"Did I?!" he suddenly demanded, his voice ringing thru the quiet (too quiet) sub-levels. God, it was hell on Earth not knowing what was going on topside. Being stuck down here in the muffled sub-levels where they couldn't hear a sound from above was safe, but it was torture. The Phoenix Forces' cosmic energy would scramble any communication devices the X-Men employed; and, of course, telepathy was not an option. The cosmic Force created a vacuum that swallowed up everything, like shouting into an echo-less void.

Everything ... Dad. Meg's heart hammered. She knew he was in danger. Rachel too. They were X-Men. Weren't they constantly in danger? Megan had never really thought about it. Cyclops and Phoenix went off and did superhero stuff. And then they came home. And they all laughed and everything was all right.

Danger. Injury. Casualty ... those words had never entered Meg's thoughts. They did now. And they petrified her.

She felt her emotions beginning to unravel, spin out of control. NO. Not now. Not. Right. Now. She could freak out and cause telepathic storms and blow stuff apart with her mind _later_. Now, she just couldn't think about losing it. She couldn't.

Her family needed her. And if she was a telepathically catatonic mess she couldn't help them. She gazed at Oli. The boy was starting to cry. Meg had no idea he could do that. She remembered venturing into Emma's mind, clinging to one thought like a lifeline. Well, that's what she had to do now. Focus on Oli. Help him. You can do that. Don't look at it. Don't think about it. The awful stuff exploding all around you. Just focus on what you can do _now_.

Meg gently, and somewhat awkwardly, put her arms around him. She'd never seen a boy cry before. If someone had asked her what it looked like, she might have imagined it would be like a hero in a book, with silent tears spilling gracefully down his cheeks. But no, Oli was sobbing and snotting all over the place like a toddler.

He sort of shoved his head on her chest, which made Meg blush. In any other situation this would have felt mega-weird with a boy in this close proximity to her, er, bosom. But Oli was crying so hard, Meg seriously doubted he had ... _other things_ on his mind. She had no way of knowing, of course, and right now she was seriously glad she couldn't.

"I-I could h-have stopped Jeanie," he hiccuped when he was able to talk. He was making wet, gross, boogery patches on Megan's blouse which she was trying very hard not to think about that. "I-I coulda, you know ..." He made a vague gesture towards the shades covering her face.

Meg was horrified. What Oli was implying would have been as bad as Meg invading someone's mind. Olivier had hypnotic powers which he channeled thru his eyes. Oli had never used his powers to control anyone; he was forbidden to, of course, but he never wanted to. Oli took a wicked delight in practical jokes, but even he wouldn't dream of using his powers to take over someone's mind.

"N-No, Oli, it's wrong," Meg stammered.

"But the grownups w-wanted me to -" Oli sobbed. "I know it."

"No they don't," Meg said firmly, grasping his shoulders and peering at her reflection in his shades. "They don't expect that of you, Oli, and you know it. The same way Mamma - Mom won't let Ruby fight."

Hell, even Rogue wouldn't let Ray-Ray fight against Jeanie and everyone knew how badly Auntie Marie pushed her daughter. But Meg didn't tell Oli that; he was upset enough as it was.

"The grownups don't want us to fight and ..."

"They know best, don't they?" Oli said crossly, pulling away from her, with a sneer in his voice.

Meg was shocked, flushing. Well, of course, the grownups _knew best_ , didn't they? They had had years of training as well as seasoned experience on the battlefield, plus they had umpteen years of just _life_ experience. Yes, Meg seemed like a brown-nosed idiot saying it, or even thinking it, but of course the adults knew what was best. Why the hell would they put an untempered kid, _their_ untempered kid, in the field in their place? It just didn't make sense. Yes, Ruby and Olivier sounded like cool rebels for saying differently, but to Meg's mind, yes, the adults knew more than the children and, yes, the adults were mysterious about some things and kept details from the kids, but hell, from what Meg had seen and experienced this afternoon, she didn't _want_ to know more about the lives the grownups led.

Let her be an ignorant know-nothing kid. That was good. That was safe. That was selfish and Megan was ashamed of it, but deep down that's how she felt.

Ray-Ray suddenly burst into the Ready Room where Meg and Oli had been hanging out, crying, awkwardly hugging. Ray didn't usually look surprised - she usually didn't wear any expression at all as far as Meg could tell - but she seemed vaguely shocked at catching her brother and Meg in this position.

"Are ya'll kissing in here?" she asked them.

"NO!" Meg practically shouted.

"No ..." Oli said, but Meg noticed he sounded kind of sorry about that.

"Am I going to be an aunt?" Ray-Ray said in all seriousness.

"Kissin' don't make people aunts," Oli snapped.

"Ray-Ray, shut up and go away!" Meg hissed at her.

"It's a free country," Ray drawled.

"What do you want, Ray-Ray?" Oli sighed.

"Oh, yeah - I'm hungry!" his sister replied.

Oli and Meg groaned together. "Here. It's macadamia, FYI." Meg handed over her very last cookie to her cousin.

"Oh," Ray added, after swallowing the cookie whole. "Also, Ruby's gone to the Astral Plane, so there's that."

" _What_?!" Meg and Oli cried simultaneously.


	25. The Sorcerer's Apprentice

**_Hey-O, people! How are you?_**

 ** _I want to thank Ogygian Spring for the kind shout-outs. You rock! I don't know what kind of powers Ruby and Meg's older brother would have. I'm thinking psionic-bursts similar to Cyclops' brother Havok? Let me know what you think._**

 ** _These characters belong to Marvel, not me._**

 ** _"So Young" is a stellar song. It reminds me of Chicago. Check it out. (Just as an aside, I do not promote violence in any form. I just thought the song "So Young" really relates to this chapter.)_**

 ** _Thank you and cheers,_**

 ** _Maria_**

 ** _Chapter XXV: The Sorcerer's Apprentice_**

 ** _So young, loaded gun,_**

 ** _Oblivious to what the trigger does,_**

 ** _Will ya wake up?_**

 ** _Never gonna make up,_**

 ** _Got ammunition on a mission,_**

 ** _Gonna shoot you down._**

 _-Portugal. The Man, "So Young"_

Yes, this felt right, Jonathan Richards thought. Teacher was so kind, not like everyone thought, not like he had been told since he was an infant. His Mama's, Rachel and Laura, and even Grandma Emma, who Jonathan secretly adored, were all so wrong. In fact, they were such hypocrites. Weren't they preaching tolerance and understanding constantly? But they could not accept someone with such different ideas as they had?

And Teacher was not _bad_ – certainly not evil. He was small, which at first Jonathan, who was so tall and dashing, disdained, but then knobby little Teacher with fingers like gnarled roots had Taught Jon what he knew. And how much Teacher knew!

Not even Jonathan's father, Franklin Richards, knew half as much. Jon knew how to create telepathic projections of beastly animals, manticores and rocs were his favorites, but he had no idea how to Change things into something else – something better. But Teacher had shown him how to do it. And Jonathan had learned how to do it! He had done it to a bat first, Changing the weak scrawny little animal into a beast with ripping fangs and sharp talons. A _better_ creature.

How proud Teacher had been. How proud Jon had been of himself. Of course, he could imagine how horrified Rachel would be and how furious Laura would be. The women, Laura especially, had driven into Jon the idea of Balance, how each and every creature had their place, role and value in Nature. But they didn't understand Teacher and his great knowledge. Teacher did not wish to kill and destroy as Jon's Mama's had always told him. No, Teacher wished to make things _better_ …

Teacher wanted a world where there was no suffering, hunger or illness. That was the noblest intention anyone ever had, in Jon's opinion. Why, wasn't that what Rachel, as Phoenix leader of the X-Men, fought for? Rachel, however, went about it in all the wrong way, constantly protecting the weak from the strong.

Teacher's solution made vastly more sense to Jonathan. In his proposed future, there would be none of that, no oppression or cruelty, no subjugation of the weak – because there would be no weakness. No. Everyone would be equally strong.

It was such a brilliant plan, Jonathan had no idea why he hadn't thought of it himself. Yes, he admired Teacher, but he was still a prideful boy. How relieved he felt that Teacher had placed Jon at the helm of his great mission to create a universe of equality.

Jon also constantly felt in awe that Teacher was the first person he had ever met to share such similar thinking. His cousins, which Rachel reiterated her son should feel some closeness towards, certainly didn't – Olivier was the only one Jon found even moderately tolerable. Jonathan had always nursed a bit of an innocent crush on his beautiful step-grandmother, Emma Frost, but she seemed almost frightened of someone, especially a kid, exercising the full potential of their powers. Just look at the restraint she constantly dictated to her little daughter, Meggie Summers.

And then there was Jeanie … sweet little Jeanie. Of all his family which Jon knew would condemn Teacher's tutelage, it was Jeanie's imminent condemnation that tormented him. Jonathan loved his twin sister more than any other living thing in this or any universe.

And of all the people in his life, he knew Jeanie would be most appalled by Teacher's plans he had converted Jonathan to. Because it did involve killing … which his beloved Jeanie was revolted by. This killing, however, was not cruel. Oh, no. It was merciful.

That was the true beauty of Teacher's plan and what had ultimately won Jonathan over to it. It made such good sense: kill the weak and let the strong survive. It was exactly what Mama Laura had taught Jonathan and Jeanie from their earliest days – it was how Nature worked and prospered. The same way a deer herd was culled of the weak and sick by a wolf pack so only the strongest could live to reproduce. If the weak were permitted to survive, they would burden the prosperous and their suffering would be prolonged.

Well, Teacher's plan for the people of Jonathan's home world worked in the same way. The weak and sick and deformed would be killed swiftly and painlessly. No cruelty or suffering. Then the strongest and most powerful would have the whole world – all the resources the weaker were wastefully using up – to grow, prosper and have babies. And, with Jonathan's powers of transformation, the strong could become even better. He could eliminate every blemish from another person, enhance every power. In a generation or two, all people would be equal and happy. There would no want, despair or suffering. Starvation, war and disease, the horrible ills that plagued the peoples of Earth, would be wiped off of the planet.

Jon knew he should have been more adverse to this plan, especially since Teacher had trapped him in the Astral Plane and Jonathan couldn't return to his home dimension. But then Teacher had patiently explained that he had had no other way to reach out to Jonathan, to share with him his brilliant master plan. And, after Teacher had shared his plans with Jon and showed him the full potential of his powers, of course he forgave his new mentor.

Teacher's thinking and opinions were just so similar to Jon's … and, to the boy's shock, so much like his own family's! Auntie Marie was a shining example. Everyone knew how she wanted the strongest, most powerful descendants. And Jon had always sensed how insecure Emma was about eventually being a weaker telepath than Rachel or Jeanie.

And they reviled Teacher? They had the nerve to call him such horrible names as _Apocalypse_?

It made no sense. Teacher was just echoing what Jonathan had been taught since infancy. In fact, Teacher's plan echoed Jonathan's deepest convictions almost exactly. How could he reject someone who shared his own ideals so perfectly and had the knowledge and resources to carry them thru? Strive for strength. Be merciful, be kind, but be logical. Only Teacher's plan was even better than what Jon had always been taught by his two mothers and grandparents. It streamlined the whole process …

And put Jonathan at the top. OK, it was selfish, but why the hell not? His silly cousins had always viewed the boy as silent and strange; even Oli only ever wanted to use their powers for mischief and pranks. Not one of them realized their own potential … or that Jon was the most powerful person in the room – or in the whole world – except for little Jeanie. Why should they acknowledge supreme power when they were spoon-fed a doctrine of extreme restraint and suppression of their powers?

Well, that was all about to change. Jon would shape their thinking and opinions to his liking in the same way he had shaped that little bat to make it stronger and better. They would come around to his way of understanding … even Jeanie. Especially Jeanie. Jonathan smiled a secret smirk when he thought of himself ruling a better, more prosperous and peaceful planet with Jeanie at his side.

 _Are you ready, Student_? Teacher called out to him telepathically. Jon smiled. Yes, Teacher didn't make foolish demands for Jon to communicate verbally. Teacher understood that psychic communication was the way of the future, the way all people would communicate in their brave new world, where all people, and all their private thoughts, were open and equal with no room for deception or unfairness. Jon wouldn't be reviled or disdained or pitied for his strange silence; he would be understood for what he truly was – the most supreme being ruling a world of supreme beings without a sign of weakness or failing.

 _Yes, Teacher_ , Jon replied psychically to the being known to some as En Sabah Nur – but to most as Apocalypse.

 _I give all of my Students a new name because they become new beings under my Teaching_ , Teacher stated to Jonathan. _Your reign in your home world, MY home world, the one I was born into, will sweep the Earth like a storm, bringing about an eternity of peace and equality among its people such as their feeble minds could never comprehend._

Teacher regarded his prize pupil Jonathan Richards with his pale eyes as he "whispered" directly into the boy's mind: _So I now call you Hyperstorm._

 ** _###_**

Meg puffed on Oli's heels which annoyed her considering she was "leading" this charge to put a stop to Ruby's reckless behavior.

Damn her short legs! Why – oh, why couldn't she be growing taller alongside her psychic prowess?

"You're _not_ following me after Ruby!" the girl snapped at Olivier.

"You right, I ain't!" he replied grimly, but the humor of the lanky boy having to slow his hurried steps to Megan's short pace wasn't lost on him.

"You know what I mean!" she snarled. "I ain't – I mean, I'm not." (One thing about hanging around the LeBeau siblings was she started to eventually pick up on their verbal nuances and accent, something that drove Emma _crazy_.) "I'm not putting you and Ray in danger!"

"You right, you ain't, _cher_ ," Oli replied briskly. When he got very agitated he started speaking in that weird language only he and Ray spoke. "We going by our own selves. You ain't making us."

"Uh, I didn't say I was goin," Ray piped up. The tall girl had had to slow to a downright saunter to let Meg and Oli catch up. Oli was fit and Meg certainly wasn't a couch-potato, but the two were already panting trying to keep up with Ray.

Oli made a dismissive gesture at his sister. If he was going somewhere, alternate dimension or otherwise, of course Ray would be right behind him – or beside him as the case may be. The siblings hadn't spent a day apart since Olivier had been born, let alone in another dimension.

Meg whirled angrily on her two cousins, putting her size-three foot down hard. "It's impossible, LeBeau. You _cannot_."

"Uh-huh, yeah, we can," Ray replied between bites of a blueberry-cake-donut she had gotten from God-knows-where. "Y'know how Brother can mentally cloak you when you two are having yah 'private discussions?'"

Meg's cheeks burned.

"Same principle only he can piggyback alongside you when you go into the Astral Plane," Ray explained.

"Wha … What?" Meg stammered out, barely comprehending.

"Welp, that's jus a theory," Ray said, licking her fingers carefully. "But if Oli's powers are anything like mine – like how we're both psychically undetectable?" Meg could only nod, bewildered, at the girl's wide green eyes staring at her. "Then it could be possible. Leastways, it worked for me when I followed yah sister Ruby into the Astral Plane."

"You followed _Ruby_ into the Astral Plane?!" Meg and Oli gasped together. They were going to be buying one another a lot of sodas.

"Well, _someone_ had to keep an eye on her," Ray explained calmly.

"I don't get it …" Meg said faintly.

"What's not to get?" asked Ray. "I told you I theorized that Oli could piggyback …"

"I know! I know!" she snapped. "This is just …"

"All so messed up?" Oli suggested to her and she nodded gratefully to her friend.

" _Stay away from me_!" they heard Ruby suddenly shout.

Meg immediately picked up on Ruby's intense fear – Kymri's too. God, what now? The three kids stumbled in the direction of the Danger Room. As they turned a corner (Ray flying and slamming into it, crumbling part of the wall) Megan saw Kymri levitating in the air opposite of a crouching and angry Ruby. Beads of sweat rolled down the girl's face as she concentrated. To Meg, the scene looked like something out of a horror film; she'd never seen her sister use telekinesis before.

"He-eelp …" Kymri gasped as Ruby tightened her invisible grip on the blue-skinned woman's throat.

"Ruby! What the hell did she do to you?" Meg demanded.

Distracted, Ruby's telekinetic grip slackened on Kymri for a heartbeat and the blue woman teleported away in a puff of smoke. The next instant, she was holding Meg's sister in a headlock.

"I said stay away from me!" Ruby screeched.

"What did she do to you, Rube?" asked Meg. She liked Kymri OK – the woman was like an auntie to her and, of course, she was an X-Man which warranted respect – but she was ready to fight to protect her sister.

Kymri was scowling like she was ashamed.

"Nothing!" Ruby said quickly. "She didn't do anything to me! I-I did something to her. I used my kinetic powers against her."

Her sister and cousins just stared in horror. Using your powers against someone intentionally, maliciously, was unthinkable.

"I was trying to stop her!" Kymri explained.

"Good," Meg replied.

"You can't!" Ruby snarled. And Kymri, making a strangling noise, floated up in the air again.

Meg, overcome with anger, attacked. She's seen enough. "Maybe Kymri can't, but I can!"

Megan was terrified. She had never intentionally used her powers in battle, especially against a loved one. Adrenaline and fear were pulsing thru her temples; she felt herself tottering on the verge of losing emotional control. That could not happen.

"'Member what you did for me, Meggie?" Oli murmured at her ear.

Yes, _focus_. On the task at hand. She had to stop Ruby. Shut her down. _You're not hurting her_ , she told herslef. _Well, you are, but you're essentially helping her._

Meg gathered her strength and fired the most powerful psionic burst she could manage at Ruby. She was shocked when her sister merely deflected the burst with what appeared a swipe of her hand; she was actually summoning a telekinetic shield against her sister's relatively weak attack.

Megan, Oli and Ray could only gawk. Ruby was telekinetically managing to stave off both Kymri and Meg's attempts to contain her.

The psionic burst Meg had released bounced back at her, stunning the girl. Olivier hovered over his friend, almost too afraid to speak; his hands were shaking. Like the girls, he'd never seen real battle before.

"She's gettin' up; God, her eyes are glowing!" Ray shouted suddenly.

Oli glanced in confusion at little Meggie. She seemed too weak to move. Her eyes were shut. But all Ruby's attention was on her sister now.

Ray rushed Ruby, aiming to knock her out. The sudden distraction forced Ruby to drop her hold on Kymri, who was on the verge of suffocation and barely conscious, but Ruby raised an even stronger psi-shield at her cousin's charge. Ray slammed into it, dropping to the ground.

 _Now_! Oli thought desperately. _Now I've gotta do it_! He nervously fingered his glasses. Could he hypnotize Ruby? His stomach felt sick. He had to throw up - really badly.

Meg gently squeezed his hand. She was coming around.

Ruby, meanwhile, seemed to be fading away - literally. Like an optical illusion. Now, Oli could only see her outline.

"I-I'm sorry to hurt you," the girl's almost invisible figure said, her voice cracking with genuine regret. "Especially you, sis, but you'll see ... I'm actually _helping_ you - all of you, in the end."

And then, like that, she was gone.

Olivier threw up everywhere.


	26. Defeat

**_Well, here we are again everyone! These characters all belong to Marvel. Please read and review and tell me what you think! Your feedback gives me life!_**

 ** _Thank you,_**

 ** _Maria_**

 ** _Chapter XXVI: Defeat_**

Rachel seemed barely alive as her father carried her from the battlefield. He gazed down at his eldest child. One side of her face was bleeding badly and what skin showed thru her tattered uniform was almost blackened. She was tough and, with Hank's medical care (for it seemed there was no physical wound he couldn't heal, so long as there was still a soul attached to the body), these injuries would heal to scars as well – just like the livid markings on her face.

Still, Cyclops felt that spark of fear in his chest. It was that ball of anxiety that formed inside his soul when he first held her, when she was a small infant who refused to cry when she was taken from her mother's body. Even as a newborn baby, Rachel insisted on communicating telepathically.

Rachel had made him a very young father at twenty. That life almost felt like it belonged to another man and his memories were somehow transplanted into his mind. Cyclops had certainly witnessed stranger things. It was that small but intense glimmer of emotion that reminded Scott Summers that this young woman was indeed a part of himself.

The remaining shell-shocked X-Men stood around a surprisingly (or surprisingly to anyone besides someone like Scott who had known his old friend for so long) calm-looking Beast. Scott gently surrendered his daughter to Hank McCoy's capable arms.

"Can you fix her?" Scott said.

His voice seemed as even as usual, but he knew Hank keenly sensed the strain and raw emotion in his comrade. Rachel and Scott had worked hard on their relationship over the years, especially since her twins, his grandchildren, were born. They were on far better terms now than perhaps they had ever been, but Cyclops also knew Rachel would always view the furry blue Beast as her father-figure. Scott didn't miss the trembling hand that wasn't caused by age that Hank ran thru his surrogate daughter's blood-matted red hair.

"Possible. Probable," Beast responded, but his blue eyes were worried in his broad fuzzy face. "Physically, at any rate. It is strange, Mister Summers …" he mused. When Scott quirked an eyebrow at his old colleague, Henry explained: "It seems I am carrying one of these Summers girls every other day since Rachel was born."

Toad murmured praise to the Alvers brothers as they staggered after Cyclops, their eyes wide with shock; not even the usually hotheaded Hecktor could think of anything to say. The twins only nodded at Toad. Scott doubted they even heard the man's words. Toad was a great deal more hardened to this lifestyle than the other much-younger X-Men, but even he seemed very unnerved by Rachel's state. Merle was her usual silent self; her forked tongue flitted out, telling her everything she needed to know. Stefan and Oliza dashed forward, Stefan on all fours as he usually did when he was in a hurry, from their rescue detail to teleport the others at the School away to the sub-levels.

"Eleanor and Martin?" Scott grunted to Oliza.

 _Safe_ … _along with all the others,_ was all the woman could manage to sign as her copper-coin eyes took in the sight of Rachel. She and her little brother had managed to get all the occupants remaining at the School to the safety of the sub-levels.

Rachel weaved in and out of consciousness as Oliza gently touched her arm to 'port her away to Hank's auxiliary med lab in the sub-levels. Rachel watched her dad's face and then Uncle Hank's swim in and then out of her blurry view. Jeanie … She lost Jeanie. Goddamn.

Phoenix was comatose by the time Hank laid her down gently on the exam table. "Skin-cell-renewal technology will take care of the extreme burns," Beast murmured as he bustled about. Scott couldn't remember a time when Beast wasn't bustling and busy with some project, some research, saving someone's life. "I am considering implementing facial reconstruction as well – if my patient requires such desperate measures." Most of this tech, which couldn't have even been dreamed of when they were young men, was Hank's own creation. Some belonged to the late Reed Richards, Franklin's father. Some was Shi'ar. "Let us hope not," Hank added grimly. "The girl has traumatic injuries as it is and even with this tech, and under my care if I do say so myself, she will spend a considerable amount of time in recovery."

Scott, understanding, leaned wearily against a spare stainless-steel operating table. He pushed his hands thru his greying hair. Sleep seemed a luxury to the leader of the X-Men; one he most often couldn't afford.

"You might as well strap her down to that table then," Cyclops sighed.

"Yes," Beast chuckled dryly. "Our Rachel won't be happy bedridden, especially considering the recent behavior of her progeny, though we might not have to worry about enforcing bed-rest on our girl. Her body is here, but I do not doubt her consciousness is with her little Jeanie."

"On the Astral Plane," Scott murmured, studying his daughter's ravaged face. It was so strange, he barely remembered her without her disfiguring tattoos which marked her long time in servitude. Still, she was a stunningly beautiful woman with the pallid skin and wide expressive eyes of her mother.

Scott knew his daughter communicated with Jean Grey, his beloved late wife, on the Astral Plane. He almost resented her for it when he thought of the thousands of things he wanted to tell his first love. Rachel had shared a rapport with her mother since her conception and Jean's death had not severed her bond with her girl. Rach never mentioned these encounters she shared with Jean, at least never to Scott. There were times he wondered if this was some twisted revenge Rachel had devised to punish him for his past treatment of her.

Emma rushed in the med bay, her blue eyes wide and terrified. Scott felt that familiar pang that told him Rachel's stepmother and Jean Grey's rival was closer to his daughter than him. She took in Rachel's appearance, murmuring incomprehensibly, a habit she'd developed over the years when she was extremely stressed. Scott usually teased her about it, but he knew now would not be wise.

Emma gently approached her stepdaughter, resting a hand tenderly on her forearm. In that moment, genetic differences disregarded, it was hard to tell she wasn't the woman's mother.

"She's on the Astral Plane?" she demanded of Hank.

"Yes, I believe so," he replied.

"Good …"

Scott knew his wife's intentions an instant before she said it. And he knew she had the upper hand here. Hank did as well; as he pushed past Cyclops, he gave his old friend a look that clearly stated Scott Summers would be getting no help from him. Not that it would make any difference …

Scott met Emma's steely gaze. "You said you couldn't stop me, Scott. You said only Rachel could stop me by force," she said fiercely. "And there is no time to find wherever the hell Kitty Pryde is. We have to save Jonathan now!"

Cyclops bowed his head. He'd lost this one. It seemed his life was a succession of losses. He went to Emma. "I know. Just …" The White Queen gazed at her lover. She was ready to rush off into the face of danger – stand alongside her stepdaughter to save Jonathan. However, she paused to caress her husband's cheek. She couldn't read his thoughts, but she didn't really have to. She knew he was thinking of the many, many people he had loved and lost. First his parents, then his brother, then Jean, then Rachel. He couldn't lose her; he couldn't lose his smallest daughters.

Beast, murmuring as if to himself, quoth: "Tis better to have loved and lost …"

"Hank, _no Shakespeare_ , not now!" Emma hissed at her colleague who just showed his fangs in a grin.

"That is Tennyson, my dear lady."

Ignoring Beast, she turned softly to Scott. "I know, lover. I will."

"The X-Men will try to reach Nocturne in Genosha," he replied, kissing her on the forehead. He rested his hand ever so briefly on her belly. Time was of the essence now, but he wanted to hold onto her forever. The same way he wanted to hold onto everything important to him.

 ** _###_**

Emma opened up her eyes.

"Welcome to the Astral Plane," an all-too-familiar voice stated. Oh, that's a voice Emma could have lived her entire life without hearing again.

Jean Grey, not a day over twenty-two, was helping Emma to her feet. Now, that was something else she could have lived without. "Emma," the famous (or infamous, in some cases) redhead said with a nod.

"Jeanie, you haven't aged a day," Emma said in ultra-saccharine tones. "Though I suppose that's hard to do when you're technically a corpse."

Jean grinned that good-natured smile that drove Emma up a wall. "I haven't seen you here in quite a while, Emma." The Astral Plane was a psychic server, a place telepaths could share knowledge and wisdom. For Dr. Grey, insight was to be shared freely with others. For the White Queen, it was to be parleyed out for retribution.

"How exactly would you know? Time has no meaning here," Emma replied, biting off every word.

"Well, yes, not _here_ ," Jean said, eyeing her old rival up and down. That was the thing about Jean Grey; how she could say so much, do so much, cut so deep, with so little ammunition. Emma knew she was tallying every wrinkle, every white hair, every blemish on the White Queen's immaculate mortal form. "I believe you have come here to save your grandchildren."

"Technically, they are _your_ grandchildren," Emma said, frowning.

"Everything is about technicalities with you when it comes to your age, eh, Grandma?" Jean said with a smirk.

"Go to hell, Jean Grey."

"Already here."

The two women were on their feet running even as they spoke. Emma noticed with more than a bit of satisfaction that she matched Jean step for step in speed.

"We could get there faster telekinetically," Jean called out.

"I'm not telekinetic, Dr. Grey," Emma replied, highly annoyed. Yes, it was not enough Jean Grey being all that she was - she had to be _Gifted_ with one of the rarest abilities.

"I know, but your daughter is."

Emma spun on Jean. Yes, time was of the essence, but she hadn't abstained from contact with her least-favorite-person in this or any dimension for this.

"You have a very annoying habit of predicting the future -" Emma began, her temper rising.

"It isn't me. It's this place," Jean responded, her large green eyes sparkling with glee. "Though I have some interesting predictions about _those_ ..." she said, indicating Emma's abdomen with a sly smile.

Emma glowered at her. Jean pointed at the sky. Eyes narrowed in fury, Emma squinted above. A huge fluffy cloud floating overhead took the form of the White Queen. _Fat, Emma_ , it seemed to say. _You're going to be SO fat_.

Emma fought the urge to decapitate her rival; she wanted so badly to severe her neck with her razor-edged glare. But, unfortunately, Jean Grey was already dead.

"Congratulations, by the way," Jean continued on. Her expression seemed serious, but Emma didn't miss the twinkle in her eye. "Again. I didn't get a chance to congratulate you when your first two were born. I was wondering what took you so long; then Rachel explained. That girl is as protective as her father. As paranoid too. Now I know where Megan gets it."

 _Not from you_ ... were the words that hung between them. Emma bit her lip. She knew working with her old rival was part of the deal of coming to the Astral Plane, but Jean was beginning to tread into dangerous territory now discussing her daughters.

"Of course, I'd expect such a _careful_ child from you and Scott," Jean added with a smile. "Always weighing the risks she takes against an outcome. With a bit of confidence, what couldn't she do? She would make a brilliant student."

"She. Isn't. _Yours_ ," Emma growled.

"Unfortunately. Ruby is your only child to give this place a shot. She's doing very well here. I guess you've seen the fruit of her labor?

" _Ruby is here_?!" Of course, she'd suspected it, though it was a ridiculous hunch. Ruby wasn't Jean's descendant and she wasn't even telepathic. How on Earth could she even access the Astral Plane? When Ruby started sneaking off, Emma had nursed false hopes that her 14-year-old was off partying or having premarital sex or doing drugs - Emma felt a horrible parent for even thinking it, but any behavior would have been preferable to this.

How else could she not psychically track her little girl unless something far more intriguing than generic teenage hijinks was afoot?

Somehow, however, Emma had sensed Ruby's true intentions, her true actions ... her true nature. Indeed, perhaps Ruby was not the rambunctious, wayward, but always kind-hearted offspring her Mamma had always known. Perhaps she could be different. Perhaps she could be _more_.

"Yes," Jean replied, still wearing that infuriatingly benign smile on her gorgeously ageless face. "I've been mentoring her here for a while now, _you know_."

 _You know_ ... Emma's eyes widened and her nostrils dilated as she was almost blinded by pure fury.

Yes, all of what Ruby had done, her deceit, her disobedience, had hurt Emma with an almost physical pain, but the fact that Ruby had turned elsewhere than her own mother, the White Queen, for mentoring, comfort and advice - and to _this_ woman, Emma's oldest enemy, no less - is what tormented Emma the most.

They were dashing shoulder-to-shoulder along a forested path upon which Emma could just glimpse a purple mountain rearing its way up above the trees. Suddenly, Emma stopped, throwing out her arm to halt the redhead. Of course, Jean floated up on a telekinetic burst, but seemed to glance down quizzically at the White Queen.

"Tell me something, Dr. Grey," she demanded. "Before I put my life and the lives of my unborn children at risk and possibly kill us all - why are you doing this?"

Emma's face was contorted in inner turmoil. She could spit snark all day at her old enemy, but being beholden to Jean Grey for anything, let alone the protection and teaching of her little girl, was pure hell on Earth. It didn't just damage Emma's fierce pride, it seemed to physically wound her.

"You hate me. I took Scott Summers - the love of your life - away from you!"

"Death took me away from Scott," Jean replied cooly, her expression like stone.

"Then why? If not for revenge - why?" Emma hissed.

Jean gazed long and hard into Emma's blue eyes. She had felt it on her before, long ago, when Emma was young and untried ... long before their rivalry began, when she might have called this beautiful woman with the red hair and the fiery temper an ally ... or even a good friend. Back to a time when she was simply a scared teenager named Emmie, not the resplendent and formidable White Queen. Back to a time when Emma herself had been Dr. Grey's apprentice.

"Because Megan and Ruby belong to Scott. And Rachel in some ways. And I love them," Jean replied simply. "But mostly because they are just kids - kids with enormous almost incomprehensible powers - and they need my help. Because they are young and scared ... just like you were once, Emmie."

Jean Grey turned away, continuing to fly, powered on by her telekinesis. Emma was furious. That was it; those were the words that would have ended Jean's life by the White Queen's hand if she wasn't already dead, Emma's afterthought told her like a taunt. That was Dr. Grey for you – exasperatingly impossible, in life and in death.

The White Queen caught up to her on the forested slope of what appeared to be a mountainous volcano. Emma was reminded again, with a prickle of self-consciousness that she was a bit of an exception among telepaths, having so little experience with the Astral Plane. She did know the landscape here wasn't static. It could change at any time, warping and weaving its appearance according to which psychics accessed the dimensional server. Emma could only imagine what was causing this, as the ground seemed to grumble beneath her feet.

She turned to Dr. Grey for answers, which might have hurt whatever pride she had left had they been under different circumstances and Emma wasn't _alive_. Yes, that thought gave a small glow of comforting superiority to the White Queen. Jean Grey could not live on in the "Real World." She couldn't watch her children grow up or grow old or bear more children. No, that was the lot of the living. All the things Jean Grey could do, she couldn't do _that_ , Emma thought with smug satisfaction.

She knew her thoughts were apparent here, open and obvious to everyone, Jean included. That was just as well, Emma mused. She _wanted_ Jean Grey to know these things.

The coniferous tree trunks seemed to wobble around them as the mountain's base gave a heave, like a huge hand running under the blanket of the forest floor.

Jean's emerald-green eyes met Emma's sapphire gaze. _No room for rivalry here_ , Dr. Grey's expression said. _There is a job to do_. It was like staring into her step-granddaughter Jeanie's obstinate eyes, except Jeanie's were blue. Emma knew personal rivalries were out here; Jean would not rise up to meet any challenge the White Queen threw her way. There were far more important things at stake here.

"My grandson," Jean explained verbally to Emma. " _Our_ grandson."

She gestured towards the mountain's summit. Emma spotted a figure there she thought she'd never see again and whose appearance made her heart both leap with joy and plummet with fear. _Jonathan_! He was too high up to know for certain, but as Emma squinted up at the ledge he was perched on she thought she saw the tall handsome boy wielding his telekinetic spear in defense.

The mountain seemed to suddenly cave in, its rocks rearranging themselves into a shape that appeared like a … _face_ , a monstrously huge face with glaring pale eyes.

"Ah – a …" Emma stammered, her blue eyes wide.

"Apocalypse," Jean stated grimly.

It was a face Emma had fervently hoped never to see again, in here or any other world. A name she had never hoped to hear ever again. Now the creature's gigantic teeth, as big as stalactites, hovered over her beloved step-grandson, as if to eat him whole.

"Save him!" a voice cried above them. Rachel Summers sailed above them at the heart of a fiery bird wingtip-to-wingtip with another albeit smaller Phoenix – Jeanie Richards hovering at it center. Mother and daughter were hell-bent on saving the boy they loved.

Emma had last seen her stepdaughter with half her face blown off, but here in the Astral Plane Rach was whole again and fighting side-by-side with her wayward daughter. Like Emma and Jean's quarrel, rivalries, mutinies, insubordination and infighting were forgotten here. They all shared a common goal – save Jon, stop Apocalypse.

Wings made of fire erupted from within Jean Grey; a raptor surrounded her in a halo of light. The original Phoenix soared up to join her daughter and granddaughter in the sky above, forming a fiery trio. As anxious as Jeanie was to save her brother, the young girl glanced shyly at her maternal grandmother for the first time. She knew she had betrayed her mom Rachel terribly and felt she had brought shame to her family, but she still felt the innocent inquisitiveness of the very young.

Rach only nodded cooly at her troublesome child. Though she would have forgiven her beloved girl for anything (including her awful treachery and disobedience towards her mother) Rachel was still furiously angry at her teenage daughter. Like any good Summers, she was allowing her current focus on her goal - saving her son - to distract her from the awkward confrontation she must make with her girl.

But Dr. Grey smirked as she looked Jeanie's way, her big soulful green eyes sparkling with a mischief that would have made a Richards proud.

"Mom, Dream Jeanie. Dream Jeanie, Mom," Rachel muttered, her voice icy.

"Dream ... hmm ..." Jean mused humorously. "I guess your father had something to say about that, sweetheart."

"Actually, no, Cyclops had nothing to say about it. Besides, it was exactly none of his business anyway," Rachel stated with a dead-serious expression, staring resolutely ahead and refusing to meet her mother's amused gaze.

Jeanie giggled. Despite herself and these awful circumstances, she liked this woman who was her grandmother.

Emma watched the trio of fire-birds take wing and made to pursue them on foot up the mountainside. Yes, she primarily fought using her mind and, yes, she was pregnant and perhaps not as ... young as some other warriors, but she was no less fit for battle as far as she was concerned.

Communicating with Jon telepathically at this point wasn't an option. He was literally almost in the belly of the beast, so he was most likely infected by Apocalypse's taint. Emma needed to make a physical link with Jonathan thru touch, look him in the eyes, do something concrete because as a telepath she knew intimately the mind and body's eternal connection. Jon might be too far gone to respond to psychic contact alone, but the touch, sight or even scent of his step-grandmother whom he idolized, might bring him 'round.

It was a start, thought Emma. Then she was shoved from behind, forcing her firmly but without injury to the ground. Attuned to the warrior's life, she went limp to try and throw off her attacker when her opponent sensed her resignation and, assuming victory, slackened their hold.

Simultaneously, she searched for a mental signature and was stunned at what - or who - she discovered was holding her down and stopping her from rushing into battle. She was being held to the leaf-strewn forest floor in an invisible grip - telekinetically.

"Ruby," she croaked. Yes, her daughter's confidence was receding as the girl's telekinesis slackened enough to allow Emma to turn her head and face her daughter.

Emma gasped so hard her lungs hurt. Seeing her daughter in this place and witnessing how powerful her telekinesis already had developed might not have been enough to make the seasoned White Queen stop and stare in shock at her child.

Ruby, however, wasn't wearing her visor. For the very first time, her mother looked into the girl's eyes. They were jade-green in color and lovely.

 _Blue_ ... Ruby's thoughts screamed at Emma as her daughter looked on at her mother as dumbfounded as Emma was - but at something entirely different. At something Emma and most people would have considered mundane or boring. _So this is blue. Mamma's eyes are blue like the sky. Like Rach's. Like Jeanie's. Blue ... Damn, it's so beautiful._

Emma shook her head, stammering a bit as shock sloughed off of her in waves. "R-Ruby ..." God, Emma had seen so much in her lifetime; her daughter's beautiful green eyes were not what she expected to ever behold, however. Ruby had come out of the womb with the overwhelming need to contain her destructive optic beams.

Suddenly, an angry voice exclaimed: "Ruby Grace _Summers_! I am going to be beat your _ass_!"

Ruby was utterly stunned. Her Mamma was kneeling right in front of her. Why was her voice calling her from behind?

Oh shit ...

Her sister Meg was storming furiously towards her. Her eyes were blazing and blue. Ruby would have thought them lovely as well if they weren't smoldering with rage.

For some reason, Olivier and Ray were straggling along behind Meg.

"What are _they_ doing here?!" Emma and Ruby demanded together. This time Ruby's outraged voice sounded exactly like her mother's.

"Umm, secondary mutation?" Oli said meekly.

"Uh, for the record, I did not want to come here and I was brought here against my will," Ray explained.

Ruby rolled her eyes.

"Hey, cool, Ruby has two eyes now," Ray said.

"I've always had two eyes," Ruby said, rolling them again.

"They're green ..." Oli said. His mouth was sagging open as he gawked at pretty Ruby. Yes, he'd always known Meggie was hot, but damn ... her sister.

"Ouch!" he yelped. Meg had stepped on his foot - hard.

"Ray, what the hell do you and Oli think you're going to do here?" Ruby demanded.

The tall girl cracked her knuckles as she surveyed the mountain towering over them. "I could start by punching thru that mountain! It ... kinda looks like a face."

Meg rolled her eyes. Oli glanced between Megan and Ruby Summers as if he were reaching a tough decision. "Yaww! Stoppit Meg!" She'd stomped down hard on his foot again.

"It _is_ a face ..." Megan explained to Ray, pinching the bridge of her nose just like Emma did occasionally - far more often now than in the past. "That's Apocalypse. The mortal foe of the X-Men?" Only Ray LeBeau could make Meg Summers sound so wearily exasperated in the face of imminent doom.

"Heh, yeah ..." Ray said with a chuckle and a wicked glint in her eyes. In that moment, she looked like a slightly younger version of her mother Rogue.

"All of you go home!" Emma snarled at the children.

" _No_!" Ruby snapped, stamping her foot down hard. The other kids drew back instinctively. Her mother was fierce, but Ruby didn't waver; the Astral Plane was her turf. Not Emma's. "I'm not, Mamma! I don't really know how, but you aren't in charge here. You have no effect over this place. You can't control me here. You can't control my thoughts. You can't tell me what to do! I decide what to do here -"

Ruby leveled her sister with a fearsome green glare that actually made Megan squirm and look away. "And _you_ can't either, sis."

Ruby gathered her strength to telekinetically fly into the air when Emma called out: "Darling, wait ..." There was something so regretful in her mother's voice that made her daughter pause. Her skin was as hard as quartz crystal, but deep down, Ruby Summers had a heart softer than mush. She turned back to see the White Queen, her blue eyes brimming with sorrow. "I-I'm just ... I'm sorry, Ruby."

Ruby's eyes widened. She couldn't remember her mother apologizing for anything to anyone - especially Ruby. "You needed help. You needed mentoring. Advice and ... I stifled you. I wasn't supportive. I was so scared." Emma bowed her beautiful blond head, hair fanning out around her like a curtain, pride crumbling around her like brittle walls. "I was so insecure because I couldn't help you; I couldn't solve all your problems and ... I was afraid."

Oli, Ray and Meg were staring so hard at Emma and Ruby their eyes looked like they might pop out. _Cruuunch_! Ray slowly munched on a potato crisp.

"I was so afraid you would turn to someone else for help. I wasn't thinking about you; I was thinking about myself. I was selfish," Emma said.

Ruby regarded her mother with wide green eyes. Then she narrowed them viciously at Emma. "You're _still_ selfish!" she snarled. "You're putting my baby sisters in danger just being here! You won't listen to me or Rachel or even Dad; you're just too damn proud!"

She screamed the last words at the White Queen. They echoed eerily in the woods around them. Emma just stared into her child's eyes. Usurped by Rachel as the most powerful telepath, Meg's frenetic psychic abilities eclipsing her own ... Emma hadn't expected Ruby to be a threat to her superiority. But with Ruby's manipulation over the Astral Plane - where Emma had no sway over her child - as well as her swiftly developing telekinesis, Emma could no longer control her daughter ... not here.

Perhaps not anywhere.

"Go home, Mom," Ruby growled. Emma noticed her child no longer used the moniker "Mamma" to address her. " _I'm_ going to kick some ass now."

The girl telekinetically lifted herself into the air to join the Phoenix Force trio winging their way up toward Apocalypse Mountain. As Emma gazed forlornly after her no-longer-little girl, Meg trudged meekly up to stand beside her mom.

"A-Are we going to j-just let her go?" the blond girl peeped.

The White Queen cut her icy blue eyes at her eldest child. "What do you think?"

 _ **###**_

The jagged rocks that formed Apocalypse's cave mouth had already swallowed one of Jonathan Richards' arms as the boy seemed to grapple for freedom against the behemoth. Jeanie was the first to reach him.

 _Resist him, brother_! she shrieked telepathically to Jon and the fire-bird surrounding her in a halo of heat and light screamed encouragement to the boy in a battle-cry. _We're here to help you_!

Jon glanced at his twin with both of his beautiful blue eyes. The one usually covered to contain his optic beam was visible to Jeanie. He gave his beloved sister a smile of sheer relief with a healthy dose of wonderment.

 _The Phoenix_! his amazed thoughts echoed thru Jeanie's head. She grinned happily at her brother, so relieved and overjoyed to see him she could have kissed his face. As she glanced at their mother, she saw the same joy radiating from her - Rachel Summers' heart leaped with pure ecstatic happiness. No matter what she had been thru alongside her family; God, it was all worth it to catch a glimpse of precious son. The sight of him was like a drop of water to a woman dying of thirst.

 _Phoenix Force combine_! Jean's psychic order shouted thru Rachel's and Jeanie's brains simultaneously. Jeanie felt her life force merge liquidly into those of her mother and grandmother.

Phoenix ... all three fiery raptors of three generations merged to form one gigantic bird. In that moment, the three Grey women were no longer individual beings, but pure cosmic energy in the form a massive avian.

The colossal Phoenix, almost as big as the mountain-sized Apocalypse, roared with fury and breathed psionic fire, hotter and more destructive than any fire made by nature or man, at the gigantic mutant. Apocalypse bellowed, but refused to loosen his grip on Jonathan. The boy cringed, but the Phoenix-fire seemed to have no affect on him.

Suddenly, the monster's head was punched cleanly off as a figure with short spiky hair and a streak of white - Ray - came sailing thru the rubble she had made with her well-aimed assault. The girl recovered, hovering, admiring her handiwork. Most people were always telling her to settle down and not make a mess; this was an amazing release!

Apocalypse, however, simply regenerated another head, boulders piling on top of one another as he reformed into his mountainous shape. He roared at his adversaries, swiping at Ray as she flitted around him like a nervous bird.

Boulders the size of houses levitated around the behemoth. The huge stones forming his arms and shoulders began to come apart as Apocalypse was ripped limb for limb, literally, by Ruby Summers' telekinetic fury. The girl floated up to hover face-to-face with the monstrosity, her green unobstructed eyes blazing. She held a very pissed-off Olivier LeBeau in her arms.

"Leggo my best mate!" the boy ordered. He threw off his shades and gazed straight into the Devil's eyes. Oli's snake-eyes burned into the giant's enormous pale gaze. "Do as I say ... let 'im go."

Apocalypse, one of the strongest beings to ever exist, wavered for a moment, entranced by the boy's piercing red-on-black eyes. They were deep pools of magma ringed by cooled black lava.

The gigantic hand, with fingers the length and breadth of redwood trees, began to loosen its grip on Jonathan as Olivier stared down the conquerer of conquerers.

Suddenly, Jon slipped and went plummeting into space. Jeanie's consciousness, sensing her sibling in peril, instinctively disengaged from the Phoenix collective to dive after her brother.

 _Jeanieeee! Wait!_ Rachel cried out after her girl as she and her mother, Jean Grey, became two beings again.

 _Rach, put everything into attacking Apocalypse!_ Jean order her daughter.

Rachel gazed agonizingly after her daughter's swiftly vanishing figure as she dove after her twin, but she knew her mom was right. Together, mother and daughter merged again to form a massive fire-bird and spray cosmic fire at their greatest foe.

 _Everybody, together!_ Rachel commanded everyone telepathically.

The combined Phoenix Force alongside Ruby's telekinesis and Ray's super-strength attacked Apocalypse as one.

Titan met titanesses as the warriors clashed with the X-Men's oldest enemy. Even with their combined forces, they were matched almost exactly in strength by Apocalypse. Then two titanic psionic bursts rippled over the landscape like a hurricane.

Ruby lifted her head to see her mom and Megan standing shoulder-to-shoulder down in the valley below, sending out wave after wave of pure psionic power to attack their foe. As cross as she was at her mother and sis, Ruby felt a burst of pride for the White Queen and Meggie Summers ... and that she, Ruby Summers, was their girl and sister respectively.

Apocalypse actually seemed to stagger; the world around them wobbled.

 _It's working!_ Rachel crowed psychically to her warriors. _He's finally weakening!_

Then Jeanie reappeared in a halo of shimmering light, levitating and holding hands with her twin brother. Jonathan lifted his free hand and looked Apocalypse dead in the eye.

The monstrous mountain that was Apocalypse began to shrink. Boulders that formed his back, shoulders and torso crumbled or disintegrated. Stones that made his face turned to dust and nothingness. Soon En Sabah Nur was a mere pebble in the palm of Jonathan Richards' hand.

Before his family's wondering eyes, the boy crushed the pebble to dust in his hand.

Jonathan looked up at his family and spoke his very first words to them: "He was weak ..."

 **A/N: Oh, snap! Please review!**


	27. Torn Asunder

**Hi, everyone!**  
 **I want to thank Guest for the kind words of encouragement. Yes, I believe all the characters in the X-Men are interesting and complex and deserve respect in writing them. I certainly hope to convey that. And don't worry, it will be explained how they came to be where they are now - all in good time.**  
 **Thank you so, so much for reading! Please review and voice your thoughts!**  
 **Cheers, Maria**

 _ **Chapter XXVII: Torn Asunder**_

Everyone stared, gawking, at Jonathan. Nobody moved a muscle or spoke. Everybody seemed hesitant to breathe or even think. Apocalypse - the Big Boss, Destroyer of Worlds - for all intents and purposes, seemed gone, obliterated. Just like that.

If someone shouted or even whispered, they were afraid this reality would shatter and splinter like glass. Everyone just hovered, staring into each other's eyes in utter shock.

Then Ruby yelled as loudly as possible. She punched Ray and Ray, out of habit, accustomed to her cousin's rambunctious nature, socked the younger girl back, sending Ruby tumbling head-over-heels thru the air, giggling with glee.

Rachel held her children closer than she had since they were born, her tears spilling down their smiling faces. Apocalypse was gone, as far as she could tell - and beautiful Phoenix couldn't even begin to grasp the implications of this revelation. Now, in this moment, however, even this massive victory - perhaps the X-Men's greatest triumph and certainly during her tenure as leader - seemed to matter not at all to her. Her precious twins, her beautiful children, were safe in her arms.

For several moments, the Phoenix and her chicks couldn't speak. Their heartbeats seemed to hammer in sync until it was one loud pounding in their brains as they seemed to float up not on kinetic energy, but pure love.

"Well, this is getting sappy," Jean dryly commented, grinning.

Rach stuck her tongue out at her mom who chortled happily in reply, but made no move to join the telekinetic family dog-pile. She seemed to know her daughter and the twins needed their space right now.

Rachel pulled her babies closer, hugging them, pushing her face into their hair, inhaling their sweet scents. God, if only Laura was here. As Rach looked them over, not even the usually aloof Jonathan tried to act nonchalant. His face was shining like the sun as he beamed up at his mother.

Phoenix was a tall woman, but at sixteen Jon was already past his mother's chin. But as Rachel's face passed over her son's head, she paused. There was ... _something_. Something different about her boy. Rach had scanned his mind immediately following the battle and was weak with relief and astonishment that her son's mind seemed indeed not infected by the virus-like taint of Apocalypse's touch.

He seemed a happy normal boy - well, as "normal" as Summers kids can get, she thought wryly. Of course, Rachel figured her son would never be a big talker, but just hearing his voice for the very first time, seeing his smile ... it was beyond anything she had hoped for. And to think she had almost given her beloved son up for dead. Just the thought of ever even seeing him again was almost incomprehensible - and now he was here cradled safely in her arms! His radiant smile and newfound voice was just icing on the cake.

But still, there was something there in her son's life-force, the psychic fingerprint that made him him, that Rachel sensed had changed him forever. It was a grey cloud hovering over their happy reunion.

It was a very small cloud, however, and she just couldn't allow it to blot out the sheer ecstatic joy of this moment. Whatever trials lay ahead for the Summers-Richards family, they couldn't possibly be much worse than what they had just faced - and now Rach knew she and her kids would face them together.

 _With Laura_ ... she thought, snuggling her nose deeper into her children's hair. Yes, how happy the twins' other Mama would be. _She might actually forget to kill them_ , Rachel thought, chuckling.

Down in the valley below, Emma watched the reunion. Joy radiated off her in waves; it was infectious and Megan grinned - but there was a blemish of discontent on her celebration as well.

"M-Mom," she said meekly. "I, uh, I can make psychic storms, bigger and more powerful than anything Ruby could do, but ..." _I couldn't this time, when I actually needed to_ , she thought unhappily, unable to finish her sentence verbally.  
Ray, Ruby, Jeanie and even Oli had pushed themselves to their limits to save Jon; Meg couldn't consciously tap into her full potential as a psychic warrioress.

Suddenly, Emma put a slender hand on her daughter's blond head. Meg glanced up at her mom, who was smiling benignly at her eldest child. Megan blushed. Of course, the White Queen had overhead her insecure musings.

"Darling, you did more today than I would have ever expected you to - more than anyone would have expected of you," Emma murmured, tousling her girl's straight hair affectionately. "You engaged in battle for the first time. You crossed over to the Astral Plane intentionally. You fought the X-Men's greatest enemy with the psionic powers of a telepath twice your age. And ..." Emma smirked wryly. "You faced down Ruby in a temper."

Meg grinned.

"I am very proud of my girl. _Both_ my girls," she stated as the flying party came floating down to the ground; Meg couldn't help but snort. The now de-visored Ruby was gently carrying Oli in her arms and the boy looked utterly smitten with her green-eyed sister.

But Ruby dumped him rather unceremoniously when she spotted Meg and their mom. Then she immediately clasped her wrist, looking very unsure and apologetic.

"M-Mom," she stammered, before Emma Frost yanked her daughter forward so quickly Ruby couldn't even finish whatever lame apology she had desperately devised. For a split second, Ruby was terrified. _This is it! Mom is going to kill me!_

She cringed ... Only to be smothered in Emma's warm embrace. The White Queen hadn't hugged Ruby this way since she was three years old. Now, Ruby's face was buried in her mother's collarbone.

"I ... I guess this means I'm ... forgiven?" Ruby gasped in her mom's choking embrace.

"Um-hum," Emma hummed, amused.

Ruby glanced uncertainly at her sister with her stunning green eyes.

"They're a great color, sis," Meg said shyly. "But ... green? Wow! I wouldn't have guessed that!"

"Heh," Ruby laughed. "A-Are you mad -?"

"Shut up, you idiot," Meg chuckled, wrapping her arms around her mom and Ruby simultaneously. She only came up to their elbows, but for once she didn't mind.

"You love meeee!" Ruby whispered.

"Guilty," Meg replied, closing her eyes in sheer bliss.

The girls laughed together with their mom; then Meg felt a tiny, tiny kick somewhere in her mother's abdomen. Astonished, she wondered if Ruby felt it too.

Rachel landed carefully with the twins, Dr. Grey and Ray.

Olivier looked pitifully up at his big sister. "Des girls keep dumping me," he whined. Ray smirked and picked up her baby brother and hugged him soundly as he laughed in a long-suffering way.

Emma gazed longingly at Jeanie and Jonathan. She wanted to grab them and cover them in kisses, but she hung back, fully expecting Jean Grey to have the honor of reuniting with their shared grandchildren first. But Jean just prowled towards the White Queen and bumped her fellow psychic on the shoulder, smiling at Emma; she jerked her head towards the twins who were waiting expectedly for their step-grandmother.

Emma was shocked by Jean's ultimately kind gesture, but not enough to stop her from rushing to the Richards siblings. Jeanie looked as mollified as Ruby - perhaps more, considering what she had done, but all was forgiven now.

Emma laughed for joy as she cupped Jeanie's face in her hands and wiped away the girl's tears with her thumbs. Jon, to everyone's amused amazement, grabbed Emma up in a big bear-hug.

She noticed with more than a hint of pride Jonathan was taller than her now. Just like his grandpa. By next year, the boy would be taller than Scott. Scott - God, she wished he was here!

Meg noticed Dr. Grey stayed somewhat apart from the group which really surprised the girl. The famous X-Man held Megan in awe; the thought that Meg had actually met her before, completely unaware of who she really was, and bad-mouthed her mortified the girl. Dr. Jean Grey. Founding member of the X-Men. Most powerful being to ever exist. Her father's first love. Meg and Ruby's stepmom ...

Wait, was she still their stepmom if she was dead …?

 _Technically dead_ , Megan thought.

 _You Frost women are all about technicalities_ , a sly voice spoke in her head.

Meg, blushing furiously, glanced at Dr. Grey who was regarding the girl with twinkling green eyes. Of course, she could read all of Megan's thoughts here on the Astral Plane.

 _I-I can introduce you, if you want_ , a timid telepathic voice spoke to Meg.

She turned to see Jeanie approaching meekly. Her large blue eyes were anxious. They hadn't parted on the best of terms, but Meg had still come thru for her best friend ... just as she had for her wayward sister.

 _I came to save you because I had to. It was the right thing to do_ , Meg intimated to Jeanie, somewhat coldly. Of course, she would forgive the girl she'd loved since she could remember, but she still wanted to hammer home that what Jeanie had done wasn't cool - and that she couldn't push Meg around.

 _I am sorry,_ Jeanie "said" telepathically. _Truly_ ...

Meg just couldn't stand her bestie looking so miserable. She reached out to take the tall girl's hand.

 _Does this mean we're still PPPF's?_ Jeanie asked with a shy little smile.

 _Pretty Pony Pals Forever!_ Meg replied, grinning.

 _Let's play with Badger Tail when we get home!_ Jeanie suggested. _And Spear-Hoof and Magenta Flame! You know your dad keeps them all along with all our old Dragon Hearts episodes? He's such a nerd!_

 _He is NOT!_ Meg argued.

 _Is so!_

 _OK, maybe just a little,_ Meg relented, giggling.

 _No, he isn't a little. He's a big nerd,_ Dr. Grey projected her thoughts directly into their brains. The girls tried not to stare, but then they were gazing down at their shoes like doofuses.

"Hello, Meg. I think we've met, but we've never been formally introduced," Jean said verbally to her stepdaughter.

"Oh, well, I'm Megan - Well, you can call me Meg. A lot of people do, Jean ... uh, Missus Grey, I mean, Dr. Grey."  
A fiery eyebrow slanted its way up Jean's face as she looked appraisingly at Meg. "You can call me Red. A lot of people do," she said drolly.

 _Nope. There is no way I am calling her that!_ Meg thought.

Dr. Grey laughed. "Then Jean will do, sweetheart."

Somehow, Meg felt a bit better. But there was something else, a desperate question Meg was nursing, but she had no idea how to ask it. She couldn't even completely form it in her mind, which was just as well because it would have embarrassed the hell out of her if Jean Grey became aware of it.

Jeanie pressed her hand reassuringly and suddenly Meg knew what she wanted to ask her ultra-powerful stepmom, but the blond girl glanced uncertainly at Emma who was still fussing over the twins. Sensing Meg's gaze upon her, the White Queen turned her head to look at her eldest child and give her the slightest of nods.

It seemed the tiniest of gestures, but Meg knew her mom and she read the message in Emma's expression loud and clear: _This is your decision, Meg. Whatever you want, I won't interfere._

Meg was truly touched. Her mother had never put such a great responsibility up to Megan Summers. Of course, the girl sensed her mom's immense inner turmoil over letting her daughter make this decision, but Meg - who was innocent and who idolized the White Queen in the same way Ruby idolized Cyclops - suspected this was because Emma was so protective and just an awesome mom. Meg didn't even consider her mother might have other reasons to be hesitant to turn her daughter over to Jean Grey's care and tutelage.

Furthermore, Meg had no idea Emma had so much faith in her. It warmed her to the core that she did.

Meg turned back to Jean Grey. "Dr ... uh, Jean. I-I have this power and it's sorta uncontrollable at times," she explained bashfully. "Especially when I lose emotional control."

"So I've seen," Jean said humorously.

Cheeks on fire, Meg nodded. Dammit, of course she knew that. Weren't Meg and Ruby on the Astral Plane when Megan caused a psychic storm?

"A-And I thought, well, maybe ..." Meg swallowed. "You could help me with that? In the way you helped Ruby?" she wound up, suddenly glancing up hopefully.

Jean seemed to gaze for a very long time - which was only a couple seconds, but it felt like a lifetime - at Meg Summers. She didn't seem to be looking at her, or even at her thoughts, but thru her, dissecting her to find out what faults and deceitfulness Meg was hiding.

Meg wasn't hiding anything, however, she thought stolidly. _I just want to learn to control this; I just don't want to hurt anyone._

"I don't know," Jean finally replied.

Meg's heart plummeted down to her shoes.

"I don't know if I should be the only one to tutor you, sweetheart," she continued, laughing at Meg's downcast expression. She tilted up Meg's face to gaze deeply into her cornflower-blue eyes. "Your powers are linked primarily to your subconscious and your emotional control, as you said, or lack thereof."

Meg squirmed.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, hon," Jean said. "My very best friend had powers similar to yours in that they could become dangerously destructive when she lost control of her emotions. I am more than willing to teach you about telepathic control and the Astral Plane, but I think 'Ro's teaching might be the one you may benefit the most from."

Meg tried not to seem disappointed. That wasn't exactly a "no" from Dr. Grey; she had been gracious. However, Megan didn't know of this 'Ro, Jean Grey's friend. Jean's answer made her feel anxious.

Jean, sensing this, of course, put a hand on Meggie's shoulder. "Don't look so down. 'Ro is a strict mentor, but she is a kind and excellent teacher and I don't doubt she'd take you on as a student," she reassured her.

"Y-Yes," Meg said bravely, trying to smile.

She glanced over at her mom who was still gushing over the twins, but her happy expression seemed forced now. Emma seemed quite upset over what Jean had just told her eldest daughter. Meg didn't understand why. Was it because she knew Meg was nervous around strangers and this 'Ro wouldn't be familiar to her?

" _We_ should be heading back now," Emma said rather loudly. She was frowning, but Meg didn't understand why - and why she didn't know. Hadn't her mom left it up to Megan to ask Jean Grey to mentor her? Weren't all secret thoughts and reservations open on the Astral Plane?

It all puzzled Meg. Her mom certainly looked like she'd gotten more than she had bargained for by allowing her daughter to ask Jean to mentor her.

"Yeah, Ray-Ray must be hungry by now," Rachel chuckled, throwing an arm around her little cousin. Her other arm held firmly to her son, like she was afraid he would vanish again if she ever let him go.

Phoenix, as usual, was trying to lighten the mood and unify everyone around her.

She, too, seemed to sense Emma's unease. However, unlike her little half-sister, Rachel seemed to know the reason why. But, as always, she wasn't sharing her thoughts with _Meg_.

"Well, not really," Ray responded casually.

Everyone gawked, disbelieving, at the tall girl.

"Well, y'know, I could go for about five cheeseburgers right about now ... when I could usually go for about twenty," Ray replied meekly.

All the heroes, children and adults, laughed at this.

 _ **###**_

As the party trotted thru the woods, laughing and chatting, the kids jostling each other in a jovial celebratory manner, Emma murmured telepathically to Rachel: _You didn't leave your physical form in such a great state, darling._

 _Nothing Uncle Hank can't repair, I'll bet,_ Rach replied cheerfully.

 _You may not sound so cheery when you awaken in our reality in an enormous amount of pain_ , Emma stated drolly.  
 _Physical pain is nothing I can't handle. Nothing I haven't experienced_ , Rachel responded. Her blue eyes swept over her laughing children. Jon's rare smile was infectious and charming. Rachel's heart swelled with almost overwhelming gratitude and happiness. She would go thru physical torment just to get a glimpse of that smile. _And nothing compared to being separated from my kids._

Emma's eyes followed the children as well. _Yes, I know what you mean. Only too well_ ... she replied. Rachel raised her eyebrows at her stepmother and sent sympathetic thoughts her way. She knew the White Queen was thinking about her stillborn son.

Jean and the kids had taken to the skies for some grandma-grandkids bonding, Ray giving Oli a piggyback ride and Ruby lugging a protesting Megan. Rachel smiled after them, her sentiment brightening significantly. She could hear the children shouting delightedly as the wings of Jean's Phoenix Force seemed to hover protectively over the teenagers in the air.

 _They'll have this_ , Rachel mused gratefully as she watched her mother's spirit soar thru the air with the children Phoenix loved most - her twins, her little half-sisters and the LeBeau kids. _A beautiful future untainted by Apocalypse. Access to the Astral Plane. And a connection to the Phoenix Force._

Rachel's joy almost seemed infinite as the happiest possible future spread out before her family.

Distracted by Jean and the children's playfulness, Rachel was about to take wing and join them when Emma halted her. _Wait._

The conifers they had been wandering thru were thinning now. In fact, everything in their surroundings was disappearing. Rocks, streams, even the dirt underfoot was vanishing, shimmering away like mist to leave stark, blank, white space. Nothingness.

Rachel's eyes met Emma's to confirm her fear. Something was wrong. Very wrong. The Astral Plane was a psychic server - composed of the thoughts and knowledge of all the telepaths accessing the dimension. For their surroundings to begin disintegrating was highly troubling.

 _Mom_! Rach called out telepathically to her mother. When there was no response, she cried: _Meggie! Where the hell are you?_

No reply. Again. _Jon! Jeanie!_ Rachel psychically screamed.

 _No, not again!_ Rachel thought desperately, teetering on the edge of panic. No, she would not lose her children again!  
Emma clasped her shoulders, her own fearful thoughts begging Rachel to remain in control of her emotions.

"Rachel, I ... I don't know this place as well as you do!" Emma barked, an edge of authority in her voice. Rachel would have laughed if she wasn't so terrified. Even in circumstances that would inspire fear in the hearts of others, the White Queen still held fast to staunch Frost pride. Sometimes, Rach wondered if it's what kept her stepmother sane. "Please, where the hell are our children?"

"MOM!" screeched Meg, plummeting to what-had-been the ground. Rachel caught her half-sister in a telekinetic embrace, almost dropping her she was so weak with relief. Ruby came tearing down a second later, barely supporting herself telekinetically. Rach caught her as well. Jonathan and Jeanie landed nearby a bit more gracefully, though their blue eyes were huge with fear, but were bowled over when Ray, still holding her brother, crashed down unceremoniously into the twins.

Emma grabbed her girls while Rachel pulled the twins and the LeBeau's into an equally tight hold.

"What's going on?" Meg cried, her voice shrill with terror. "W-We were flying with Dr ... Jean and then she was suddenly gone."

"Conveniently as usual," Emma muttered. Same old Emma, Rachel thought wryly, even in the most dire of times. It was comforting actually.

"And why is everything messed up here now?" Ruby demanded. Rach noticed her half-sister's jade-green eyes beginning to glow red, the same way Rachel's did when she was agitated.

"Ever'thing's falling apart!" Oli yelped.

"Ain't fallin' apart - vanishing!" Ray corrected her brother.

"We need to get home - NOW!" Rachel shouted.

But the sky, or what had been the sky, was cracking like ice above them ... and then the no-longer-the-ground was breaking apart too into huge jagged pieces. Space and reality heaved and shattered around them like an earthquake.

"Get out!" shrieked Rachel, grasping for the kids, but they seemed to slip thru her fingers.

The space around them, now in broken pieces, began to drift apart with Emma and Rachel on one gigantic space-ice-floe, Jeanie and Oli clinging to each other's arms on another and Meggie and Ray on yet another.

Ruby floated away on a broken piece of reality all by her lonesome. As Jonathan drifted away, all alone, opposite her.

"NO!" screamed Rachel, trying to charge towards all the kids at once, but she felt the familiar pull as her own spirit was being called back to her home reality, leaving the children, and her family, behind.

 _No. No. NO!_ were her last thoughts before she lost consciousness.

 _Not now!_


End file.
